Primaries vs. Backroom Deals and the Declining State of the Likud Party

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on March 15, 2013

Netanyahu claims election win despite party losses

Published on January 22, 2013

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged the bruised winner of Israel's election on Tuesday, claiming victory despite unexpected losses to resurgent center-left challengers.

Feiglin plan would pay Palestinians to leave West Bank

Published on January 2, 2013

Moshe Feiglin of the Likud Party offered a plan to pay Palestinian families to emigrate from the West Bank.

Polls: Netanyahu set to win Israel election but rightists gain

Published on December 28, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party is set to win a parliamentary election on January 22 although the popularity of a far-right party opposed to Palestinian statehood is growing, polls showed on Friday.

Lieberman questioned again in ambassador affair

Published on December 26, 2012

Former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman was questioned again regarding allegations that he advanced an envoy's position in exchange for information on an investigation against him.

2013 election: The shameless vote

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on December 17, 2012

Israel’s crazy election cycle

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on November 28, 2012

This might be the craziest election cycle in the history of Israel. It is short, but not a week passes without shifts and changes in the political landscape: On Nov. 26, it was Defense Minister Ehud Barak resigning from his post to pursue new horizons.

Likud Party primary yields more right-wing Knesset list

Published on November 27, 2012

Members of the Likud Party voted out moderate party stalwarts and elected more right-wing candidates to fill the realistic spots on its Knesset list.

Likud Party approves election list merger with Yisrael Beiteinu

Published on October 29, 2012

The Likud Party reportedly voted overwhelmingly to approve merging its candidates list with the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party.

By merging with Liberman, Netanyahu knocks out the left and casts his lot with the right

Published on October 25, 2012

Political pundits long have debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu. Is he a pragmatist handcuffed by his right-wing support base and, until his father’s recent death, fealty to his father’s nationalist vision?

Yitzhak Shamir remembered

Published on July 2, 2012

When Yitzhak Shamir was Israel’s prime minister, he liked to point American visitors to a gift he received when he retired as director of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service.

Lesbian couple can both be child’s mother, Israeli court rules

Published on March 5, 2012

Both members of a lesbian couple who had a child together can be recognized as the child's mother, an Israeli court ruled.

Running off the rails

By Stuart Schoffman
Published on February 29, 2012

On the 4th day of Adar, on the front page of Haaretz, there appeared a most curious story. Its headline read: “Israel Railways planning to build 475-kilometer rail network in West Bank.”

Netanyahu wins new party mandate

Published on January 31, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won a new mandate to head his right-wing Likud party, defeating an ultranationalist challenger opposed to any land-for-peace deal with Palestinians.

Likud voters electing party chairman

Published on January 31, 2012

Members of Israel's Likud Party went to the polls to elect a party chairman and a new Central Committee, more than a year before scheduled national elections.

Netanyahu shores up his power at home

Published on December 13, 2011

He may be a lightning rod for criticism abroad, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is consolidating power at home.

With pressure mounting, will Bibi go left or right?

Published on March 14, 2011

Israel is staring at a fork in the road, with potential disaster along either path. On the path to the left lies a major Israeli peace initiative that deals with all the core issues under dispute with the Palestinians. On the path to the right lies more waiting, possibly with some kind of offer of an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians, until conditions are right for something more.

Letter from Paris: Israel and France are back to normal

By Shirli Sitbon
Published on March 27, 2008

Israeli President Shimon Peres has seen it all.

Almost any man would have been confused by the series of unbelievable mishaps that erupted out of nowhere during his visit in France, from anti-Israeli rallies and boycotts to a sabotage of his speech by right-wing Jews, to the collapse of an installation just inches over his head at the mid-March prestigious annual book fair where Israel was the star guest.

Graybeards Pull Off Israel Election Upset

By Helen Schary Motro
Published on April 6, 2006

Israeli politics were shaken to their core by dark horse newcomers belonging to a party few had heard of. Close to a quarter of a million Israelis voted for the Pensioners Party, also known as GIL (age), a party run by nonpoliticians that didn't even exist three months ago; a party founded only after the regular political parties ignored the pleas of its constituents and relegated their demands low on the totem poll.

Bibi Up,  Sharon Down —for Now

By Jewish Journal Staff
Published on December 22, 2005

Former prime minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is back in control of Israel's Conservative Likud Party as his onetime ally and current rival, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, recovers from a mild stroke.

In Political Tsunami, Sharon Bolts Likud

By Dan Baron
Published on November 24, 2005

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quit the Likud Party this week to form a new centrist party to compete in early elections expected to take place in March.

Sharon's new party, to be called the National Responsibility Party, is expected to capitalize on mainstream support for his decision to withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip last August.

Army Chief Doubts Survival of Israel

By Leslie Susser
Published on June 9, 2005

It's not every day that Israel's No. 1 soldier expresses doubts about the country's long-term survival. But that was part of a bleak message from Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon that has shaken the country's political establishment.

In a wide-reaching, early June interview in the daily newspaper, Ha'aretz, the retiring Israeli army chief of staff pulled no punches. He put key existential issues on the table, questioned the wisdom of Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, debunked the notion of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said it could lead to a "situation in which there will be no Israel here in the end."

Fate of Sharon, Gaza May Hang on Vote

By Leslie Susser
Published on October 21, 2004

With opposition mounting among settlers and in his own Likud Party, Ariel Sharon's political future and the fate of his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank may be decided in the Knesset next week.

The Israeli prime minister hopes to win a decisive majority in the Oct. 26 vote on his disengagement plan, laying to rest the debate over its legitimacy and blocking growing pressure for a nationwide referendum. But a victory is not a foregone conclusion, and if he loses, it's difficult to see how Sharon can continue as prime minister.

Backlash Bolsters Sharon’s Gaza Plan

By Leslie Susser
Published on May 20, 2004

The Likud Party vote earlier this month against Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan may have been a defining moment in Israeli politics -- but not in the way the ostensible winners, Likud hawks and the Israeli settler movement, had hoped.

Paradoxically, the Likud's rejection of the Gaza Strip withdrawal seems to have sparked a huge backlash that could help the Israeli prime minister push his plan through.

Gaza Withdrawal a Risk for Sharon

By Leslie Susser
Published on February 5, 2004

In announcing a plan to evacuate nearly all of the Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is signaling that he's serious about creating large blocs of Palestinian territory free of Israelis -- and that he is willing to gamble with his political future.

Will Sharon Weather Israel ‘Watergate’?

By Leslie Susser
Published on January 22, 2004

As with President Richard Nixon in the Watergate affair, tapes and an attempted cover-up could be the undoing of Israel's scandal-haunted leader.

Sharon’s Plans for Peace Draw Fire

By Leslie Susser
Published on November 27, 2003

After several years in office that have been characterized by ongoing violence and diplomatic stalemate, Ariel Sharon says he is determined to press ahead with new peace moves that could include "painful concessions" to the Palestinians.

The prime minister's remarks last week elicited scathing criticism from within his own Likud Party. But opposition leaders and senior Israeli pundits remain skeptical. Sharon has made similar bombastic announcements before, they say, but never delivered.

Sharon Faces Tough Fight Over Coalition

By Leslie Susser
Published on January 30, 2003

Ariel Sharon is one of the savviest politicians Israel has produced. It was Sharon who brought disparate right-wing parties together to form the Likud Party in 1973.

Likud Heads Right, Labor Goes Center

By Leslie Susser
Published on December 12, 2002

The Likud Party's list of Knesset candidates, chosen in a party primary this week, left Ariel Sharon's campaign strategists scratching their heads.

With national elections approaching on Jan. 28, they had meticulously laid out a centrist strategy in which the prime minister directs moderate peace messages at the large reservoir of floating voters between Labor and Likud, who take a tough line on security but believe in the possibility of a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians one day.

It is in the battle for the centrists that Israeli elections are won and lost, experts say.

Mitzna Wins Labor

By Naomi Segal
Published on November 21, 2002

If Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna hopes to becomes Israel's next prime minister, he faces a daunting challenge: resuscitating a moribund Labor Party in a little more than two months.

Netanyahu, Sharon Face-Off

By Leslie Susser
Published on November 21, 2002

The smart money says Israelis won't have to wait until next January's general election to know who their next prime minister will be: Nearly all the pundits agree it will be the winner of the Nov. 28 Likud Party leadership primary between Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s Tactical Mistake

By David Newman
Published on June 13, 2002

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a major tactical blunder when he pushed through the vote in the Likud Party central committee to the effect that they would no longer discuss or consider the future establishment of a Palestinian state as a means to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not only did he lose public support inside Israel, not only did he lose the international image he has taken so long to build up in the foreign news media, especially in the United States, but more important than all that, he tried to force his party into adopting a policy that is passé. The decision of the Likud Party was, to put it simply, meaningless.

Taking the West Bank Off the Chopping Block

By Rabbi Dov Fischer
Published on June 13, 2002

The recent landslide vote of the Israeli Likud Party, utterly rejecting an Arab country west of the Jordan River, reflects the evolving mindset of the largest political party in Israel.

Looking Right and Left

By Naomi Segal
Published on March 8, 2001

Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon was expected to present his new government for Knesset approval on Wednesday, after the fervently Orthodox Shas Party signed a coalition agreement that gives Sharon a parliamentary majority.

Assessing Netanyahu’s Past Policies

By Michael S. Arnold
Published on December 14, 2000

It's still unclear whether former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be able to run in the upcoming election, but analysts already are wondering how a second Netanyahu administration might differ from the first.

New Urgency for Peacemaking

By Matthew E. Berger
Published on December 7, 2000

For the players in the Middle East peace process, it may seem like the two-minute warning.

The Shas Phenomenon

By Jordan Elgrably
Published on October 12, 2000

Israel's political landscape has, over the past decade, been transmogrified by the growing strength of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas (Sephardic Torah Guardians). But the conviction and recent jailing of party leader Aryeh Deri has only fortified Shas' power among an electorate of largely disenfranchised Middle Eastern Jews; the party currently holds 17 seats in the Knesset, just behind Likud. The American Jewish community, which had not previously taken much notice of Sephardic Jewry, has been shaken by the Shas phenomenon. Last week, Hebrew Union College invited Dr. Zvi Zohar, one of Israel's most astute observers of the socio-political scene, to give a lecture in Los Angeles on what many now perceive to be a permanent feature of Israeli politics.

Assigning Blame

By Gil Sedan
Published on October 5, 2000

The catalyst for a spate of violence here may have been an Israeli politician's visit to a Muslim and Jewish holy site, but Israeli officials are holding Palestinian leaders directly responsible for the bloodshed.At least 55 people were killed, mostly Palestinians, in rioting that touched off Sept. 28 when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Ehud Barak’s Kind of Town

By Larry Derfner
Published on June 3, 1999

When incoming Prime Minister Ehud Barak needs to talk things over with Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the military chief of staff, he won't have to go far: Mofaz lives 12 houses away from him in the town of Kochav Yair.

The Local Reaction

By Tom Tugend
Published on May 20, 1999

There were decorous cheers and scattered thumbs-up signs as Ehud Barak's projected victory was announced at 12:30 p.m. Monday to some 20 people gathered in Sherman Oaks for an hour-long video conference with pundits in Israel, Washington and New York.

Going Their Ways

By Tom Tugend
Published on March 18, 1999

That squeak audible over Washington this week was the sound of the pro-Israel lobby turning on a dime.
Stung by criticism by some Labor leaders of a longstanding pro-Likud tilt, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), began a quick readjustment at this week's annual policy conference in Washington.

Getting Off the Ground

By Larry Derfner
Published on March 18, 1999

Until the last couple of weeks, the best thing one could say about Ehud Barak's campaign for prime minister was that it couldn't get any worse.

‘A Split Is Hovering Over Likud’

By Eric Silver
Published on November 13, 1997

On the eve of his most testing American visit since he becamePrime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu was humiliated, live on prime-timetelevision, last Monday by the least likely of dissidents -- theblue-collar ward party bosses of the Likud central committeeconvention.

Different Approaches to Zionism

Published on September 11, 1997

Kenneth Bob, a software executive from Long Island,N.Y., is registered to vote in this month's World Zionist Congresselections, but he's having a hard time deciding how to cast hisballot.