No back-slapping for Benny Begin

Likud Knesset candidate Benny Begin transmitted a recorded message to some 100,000 registered party members yesterday asking them to vote for him in the primary.

Begin said in the message that supporters must not take it for granted that he would be elected to a realistic slot on the party's Knesset list.

Begin and his small primary campaign team feared that Likud voters would assume he would be elected to a high slot on the list in any case, and prefer to vote for other candidates.

Begin began his day in Haifa, went on to Netanya, Bat Yam, Rishon Letzion, Ashdod and Be'er Sheva, ending with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Begin did not make election deals with anyone. His activists were all volunteers. When hundreds of voters complained about the long line at the polling station at the capital's Binyanei Ha'uma convention center, Begin walked among the activists, apologizing on the party's behalf. Though he was not chummy with the voters and made do with a handshake, he devoted several minutes to each one, patiently and graciously.

The voters gathered round him, some speaking about his father, Menachem Begin, others saying they missed him. One woman showed him her historic Herut membership card, from the Revisionist party that was a predecessor to the Likud.

"Look after it well," Begin advised her.

He knelt beside another woman in a wheelchair and spoke to her for a long time, until his aides urged him to continue with the handshaking.