Today's Situation

LIKUD TURNS RIGHT, August 15, 2007

Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reelected leader of the opposition Likud party last night, garnering 73.2 percent of the vote, compared to 23.4 percent of the vote for his closest challenger, Moshe Feiglin. Danny Danon was an unsurprising third place, with 3.5 percent of the vote.

Despite what appears to be a resounding victory for the incumbent, by winning close to one-quarter of the vote, Feiglin - who heads the right-wing branch of the party - has very much put his name in the limelight and has given the party a sharp pull to the political right.

Netanyahu seems to realize this and, according to Haaretz, in his victory speech on Tuesday night, said that he would seek to protect the party from the influence of Feiglin and his supporters. His first step was to bar the defeat candidates from appearing with him on the stage as he gave his victory speech.

In his speech, Netanyahu insisted that Feiglin's camp will have no influence on the party. He added that the internal battle has ended and the party will now focus its efforts on bringing Israel a new leadership.

But Likud leaders are up in arms over the 23 percent support Feiglin won. Members of the Netanyahu camp stressed that most of Feiglin's supporters do not vote for Likud in general elections and that a large number voted for the extreme right wing activist Baruch Marzel in the last general elections.

Feiglin himself declared that the support he won was a victory for his camp's growing influence and scorned Netanyahu's refusal to allow them to appear together, as traditionally is done during the victory speech.

Speaking on Israel Radio on Wednesday, Feiglin accused Netanyahu of 'destroying the Likud' by fighting his faction instead of fighting leftists.

'He is repeating previous mistakes,' Feiglin said. He noted that Likud has declined from 48 Knesset seats to its current 12 because the party has deserted nationalism. 'People vote left and they get left,' Feiglin declared. 'They vote right and they get even more left because the Likud has become a contractors for carrying out the polices of Oslo.'

Feiglin pointed out that he won 23 percent of the votes despite Netanyahu's orders to keep polling stations open two hours longer than usual and to allow members to vote from any polling station in the country in order to make it easier for his backers to cast ballots.

Elsewhere, Army Radio reports that the IDF has completed its operation in the southern Gaza Strip and all forces have returned safely to Israel. The IDF Spokesman said that between 11 to 13 Hamas fighters were killed in the operation. The Palestinians are reporting four gunmen and two civilians were killed in the clashes. Israel Radio, meanwhile, says that the IDF force arrested about 100 Palestinians who were taken to Israel for questioning. They also confiscated weapons and military related equipment. One soldier was lightly injured from shrapnel and was taken to hospital.

On the Syria front, Haaretz reports that Syria has recently received a new shipment of advanced missiles, but that Israel's assessment remains that President Bashar Assad has no intention of waging war against Israel to regain the Golan Heights. This assessment was echoed by Syrian Vice President Farouq a-Shara, who said Tuesday that Israel knows Syria is not interested in war but will always be ready to respond to Israeli aggression. Speaking in Damascus, a-Shara said Syrian civilians do not want war although they will not accept anything less than an Israeli withdrawal from the entire Golan Heights as stated in the Arab League peace initiative, which Syria supports.

'Israel is not interested in war with Syria, and we believe that Syria does not want war either,' Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday, according to Ynet. 'Therefore war shouldn't erupt,' he added.

Barak made the statements while attending a military drill of the Armored Corps' 74th Battalion in the Golan Heights. 'We haven't trained enough for five years, and we now plan to train all the IDF's units,' he added.

Finally, Maariv reports that U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns is scheduled to arrive in Israel Wednesday to put the final touched to an American agreement to grant Israel $30 billion in weapons over the 10 next years. The Bush administration also has offered to export $20 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, $13 billion to Egypt and $20 billion to other Gulf States.

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