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Minister of Education Limor Livnat (Knesset photo)
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Livnat looks frazzled as hecklers asked her embarrassing questions about her support for deporting Jews from their homes (Channel Two)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners February 7, 2005 |
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Education Minister Limor Livnat has taken a stand against democracy within the ruling Likud party, fearing that the Manhigut Yehudit [Jewish Leadership] faction will win more votes in Monday's election to the party secretariat. "They are using democratic means to try to take over the Likud," she fumed today, after yesterday her bodyguards physically attacked hecklers.
The Likud Central Committee, a body of some 3,000 members, is electing its 100-member secretariat today -- and Livnat is deeply concerned that the list led by Moshe Feiglin may be heading for an electoral victory.
Livnat was raised in a nationalist home, and her parents remain supporters of the Jabotinsky Revisionist movement. Although she originally opposed Prime Minister Sharon's "disengagement plan," has become an apologist for the government in recent months and a supporter of the planned expulsion of some 8000 Israelis from Gaza and northern Samaria.
Livnat today questioned the legitimacy of the Likud's Manhigut Yehudit [Jewish Leadership] faction for using democratic means to elect party officials.
She also objected to the possibility that some among the Jewish Leadership might have "poisoned blood." She singled out Nitzah Kahane, daughter-in-law of the slain Rabbi Meir Kahane. She also had a problem with the candidacy of Sha'ul Nir, a member of the Jewish underground in the 1980's who sat in prison for six years.
The two apparently also have the support of Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, Chairman of the Likud secretariat who is very popular within the party membership and is considered an anti-Sharon force.
Israel National News reported that Minister Livnat told Army Radio today that some 40 members of the 100-member secretariat are to be elected today, with the remainder comprising the 40 Likud MKs. "Some of them," she said, "are of this group that is called the Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) group, what we call the Feiglinim. There is a danger that some of them may be elected. For instance, there is Nitzah Kahane, Meir Kahane's daughter-in-law, and I would like to say here, that if Heaven forbid, Kahanistim like her are elected to the Likud secretariat, we are liable to wake up tomorrow morning to find ourselves with people like her on our secretariat. This is not the Likud! I call on the Likud membership to beware! This is not the Likud!... I am talking about these candidates that I have long warned that they are trying to take over the organization so that they can take over ideologically."
Asked by Army Radio's Golan Yochpaz to indicate what was being done on a practical level to remove the "Feiglinim" from the Likud, Livnat took pride in censoring the faction's website: "First of all, one of their number was removed from the Likud a few months ago after he wrote an article against the Prime Minister. To my great sorrow, there is not much that can be done. They are using, eh, eh, tools, eh, that are democratic, that they use -- in order to take over the Likud ideologically. There is in fact a difficult that is, eh, very problematic, they have learned to use our tools, eh, and some of them are not even voters for the Likud... and there is a tremendous difficulty. It can be prevented and overcome only if we 'get smart' and take responsibility and don't cooperate with them."
She didn't indicate which alternative to democratic activities she had in mind, and restated her support for Sharon's plan to expel residents of Gaza and Samaria.
Israel National News quoted a Jewish Leadership member of the Likud as asking in response: "What is the Likud then -- a party that stands for expulsion and abandonment of the Land of Israel, as Sharon would have it?"
The website also quoted a Likud member as ridiculing Livnat's campaign to ban a relative of Rabbi Meir Kahane: "If everyone with a family member with ties to Kach were to be distanced from the Likud, Limor Livnat herself would probably be distanced" -- a reference to her brother Noam Livnat, who is leading the campaign to call on soldiers to declare that they will refuse disengagement orders.
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