1 min read
Monday was the best day so far in this election campaign for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After 15 years of troublemaking, Moshe Feiglin, leader of the "Jewish Leadership" faction, announced that he was leaving Likud following a dismal showing in last week's primaries in which he failed to capture a viable spot on the Knesset list.
A Channel One poll released on the same day confirmed surveys from previous days, which had Likud on a slow but constant upward trajectory. It showed Likud overtaking Labour, despite the left-wing party's move to reinforce itself by bringing in Tzipi Livni.
As he took to the podium for the Likud campaign launch and presented his new-old list to the party faithful, Mr Netanyahu could also tick off Danny Danon as another problem that no longer existed - the deputy minister who had been a leadership challenger was pushed back to 10th place on the party list.
The Likud list is rather drab, without any attractive newcomers or much star quality. For Mr Netanyahu, however, there is only one reason to vote Likud and that is his own leadership. A lacklustre list is certainly better than one in which some of the more radical candidates feature highly on it.
The only fly in his ointment, the undisciplined Miri Regev, a big primaries winner who snagged the number five slot, was pushed to the margins of the group photograph and on social media was cut out altogether. If and when he forms a new government, it is highly unlikely she will be appointed a minister.
The campaign launch speech was vintage Netanyahu. Who will stand up for Israel he asked, a strong Likud or "Tzipi and Buzhi? Will they stand up to Hamas and Iran? They can't take the pressure and there are lots of pressures. They won't stand up for a moment".
He told the excited crowd that Likud's rivals in these elections were either "atmosphere parties", which come around every few years and then disappear, or "the left".
"The left just want to surrender and give in because that has been the left's way for 20 years."
To that he added a new element - a promise that in the first 100 days of his new government, a new law would be passed making the head of the largest party in the Knesset the automatic prime minister and safeguarding him - or her - from no-confidence votes. You don't need a very long memory to recall that in the past, Mr Netanyahu's Likud opposed such a law. Every election and every Knesset is a new story and Mr Netanyahu knows that this campaign has but one narrative - his own survival.
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