Israel’s opposition Likud party has selected a hawkish slate of candidates for upcoming parliamentary elections.
This would make peace moves with Israel’s Arab neighbors increasingly unlikely if Likud wins the Feb. 10 national vote.
Leader Benjamin Netanyahu hoped to present a more mainstream list of candidates to broaden his party’s support among Israelis.
But party members voting in primary elections ending early yesterday preferred candidates with uncompromising views on territorial withdrawals.
Those include Benny Begin, son of former prime minister Menahem Begin. Another is Moshe Feiglin, an extremist settler whose platform calls for denying non-Jews the right to vote for Israel’s parliament.
Cabinet minister Haim Ramon of the rival Kadima Party says the Likud’s new list shows it is a “party of the extreme right.” Recent polls show the Likud leading Kadima.
“It will not be possible to conduct a diplomatic process or even talk about a diplomatic process with such a hawkish list,” said Yoav Krakovsky, Israel Radio’s political affairs.
The most recent opinion poll, published last week, predicted Likud would win 35 of parliament’s 120 seats, compared with 26 for its closest rival, Kadima, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Although candidate lists are an important factor in Israeli elections, the contests largely hinge on the popularity of party leaders — and Netanyahu’s ratings in opinion surveys have been high.
Political analyst Hanan Crystal said Netanyahu had hoped a less hawkish profile for Likud would help the party capture more center ground from Kadima, which has been slipping in the polls since October.
“Netanyahu understands that battle lines with Kadima have been drawn in the fight for ... the 10 to 15 parliamentary seats determined by votes from the moderate right and center,” Crystal said on Israel Radio.
Netanyahu put a positive face on the results, calling the list “the best possible” in a speech to party loyalists and vowing to “improve security, strengthen the economy and continue a responsible diplomatic process” with Palestinians.
Netanyahu, prime minister from 1996 to 1999, has said he would focus on strengthening the Palestinian economy rather than on territorial issues that current US-brokered statehood talks have failed to resolve.
Tzahi Hanegbi, a senior Kadima legislator and campaign strategist, said the “real Likud” had emerged from the party election.
“Netanyahu’s dream team became his nightmare. The stars are out and the rebels are in,” Hanegbi said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS