Far-right faction fails to win seats in Likud secretariat
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Moshe Feiglin's far-right Jewish Leadership faction failed to win representation in the Likud secretariat in Monday's elections, Israel Radio reported.
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The vote was seen as a major triumph for Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, as a majority of his recommended candidates won a place in the secretariat, which is the Likud's most important governing body.
Turnout for the elections was high, with 85 percent of Likud central committee members participating, the radio reported. Some 220 candidates competed for 50 vacant spots while ministers and lawmakers made maximum efforts to get their supporters in.
Likud ministers Limor Livnat and Tzipi Livni had expressed concern Sunday about a possible right-wing takeover of the party, referring to the Jewish Leadership faction.
Livnat said she hoped the Likud voters would not lend a hand to allowing radical elements who are not part of the Likud into the party's secretariat.
In a joint statement published Sunday, Livnat and Livni voiced "concern about another step to accumulate power within the Likud on the part of Jewish Leadership - a group that just a week ago called for refusal [to obey orders to evacuate settlements] and one of whose candidates was convicted in the past of terror activities. We believe this constitutes another attempt to lead the movement to places with which the majority of Likud members do not identify."
The Jewish Leadership candidate to whom Livnat and Livni were referring is Shaul Nir, a member of the Jewish Underground who was sentenced to life imprisonment for planning and carrying out the murder of three Arab students at the Islamic College in Hebron in July 1993. Nir was pardoned and released after serving seven years of his sentence.
Likud sources say Nir appears on the list of recommended candidates under a deal put together by Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz. The sources add that Katz's deal also includes Nitza Kahane, the daughter-in-law of Kach founder Meir Kahane.
Both Nir and Kahane are part of the Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud Central Committee and ran for election to the party's secretariat on behalf of the Jerusalem district.
Responding to Livnat and Livni, the director general of the Jewish Leadership faction, Michael Pua, said their statements were tantamount to a witch-hunt. "Nitza Kahane is an amazing woman, a mother of 12 children whom they are trying to reject because of her name," he said. "And Shaul Nir has paid his debt to society, has sat in jail, and it is very petty to persecute them."
Katz's election as chairman of the secretariat some two months ago marks a new era in its functioning, with the body expected to become more influential and dominant in the Likud
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