Likud Identity Crisis, Magic Number 667

This Friday I picked up a weekend edition of ישראל היום, that free daily printed by Sheldon Anderson that's brewing up a storm in news circles because they're eating into the mainstream media and running away with the prom queen of a huge readership.

The newspaper is just as yellow and slanted as any other news source in Israel, and I didn't expect to see anything out of the ordinary. One article was about the tension in חברון that would be blown up by the "rightist celebration of the anniversary of the Baruch Goldstein massacre" or something outrageous like that. Try telling them that they're just going to mourn his death without condoning what he did and they'll laugh at you.

In the appendix, there was this article about Alon Pinkas, that Hasbara guy you often see whenever there's a terrorist attack yacking about Israel's "right to defend herself" and "desire for peace" to a CNN or Fox News anchor with a bunch of itchy questions who then turns to the "Spokesman for Human Rights in Palestine" who then goes on about how she condemns violence on both sides and the cycle of violence must end and then Alon Pinkas sits there like a polite nincompoop until he gets another turn to say something about self-defense.

The article, by way of returning to present subject matter, was about how Alon Pinkas embarrassed himself by giving a really boring speech about Tel Aviv several months ago that was apparently so excruciatingly dull that he lost his chance to become Israel's UN representative because of it.

I wasn't going to read the article because I care as much about Alon Pinkas' boring Tel Aviv speeches as I do about Mahmoud Abbas' favorite TV show. But as I flipped through the pages, a bolded subtitle caught me. I still don't understand what the heck it's doing in the article.






For the Hebraically challenged, this is what it says:

"Battle for the Future of the Likud"

The Pinkas affair still hasn't cooled off, but now another matter is frightening the upper echelon of the Likud. One of the things that Netanyahu is busy with these days with full intensity is what's happening within the Likud. According to the court's ruling, the Likud must hold elections for its party institutions within two months. Netanyahu wants the elections only in another year and a half. Why are procedural matters such as these disturbing Netanyahu's sleep and due to which he is already meeting with hundreds of Likud Central Committe members and activists these past weeks?

The reason is that the Prime Minister thinks that the battle is over nothing less than the future of the Likud. According to him, if elections were held on time, extremist types (note: that's us!) would flood the party's Central Committee that will prevent the government from moving on any political front. (Read: Will prevent him from moving left.) "These people have nothing whatsoever to do with the Likud Movement," he says. (That's what we say about him.)

On Monday, Netanyahu met with activists in the Knesset. (Read: Egotistical power hungry job-seeking sycophants.) Central Committee members left the room with the feeling that a National Mission rests on their shoulders. And so, this week, it was decided that in the beginning of March a secret ballot vote would be held in the Likud Central Committee on Netanyahu's proposal to push off the elections. According to the constitution, there needs to be a two-thirds majority of committee members to approve the move.

Among Netanyahu's people, a dark feeling is brewing that the count of the votes will see a loss. "There are those surrounding Netanyahu that are even talking about
leaving the Likud if the central committee turns into an extreme body," said one confidant of the Prime Minister. "Netanyahu very much hopes that there will be no need for such a thing."

Let that dark feeling linger, you sad, frightened people. At most, 2,000 central committee members will actually vote. Divide that by three and here's your answer: If 667 Likud Central Committee members vote against postponing the elections, the party is ours, and Moshe Feiglin moves to the next stage.

Watch out world. Things are going to get very interesting very soon in the Middle East.