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| By Israel Insider staff and partners January 1, 2006 |
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Moshe Feiglin, head of the Likud's 'Jewish Leadership' faction, announced Sunday that he is willing to withdraw his candidacy for a spot on the Likud list of Knesset candidates if the Likud official agrees to clear his name.
"What is important to me is not to be the fifth or sixth wheel in the Likud, but to lead the movement," Feiglin, who won 12 percent of votes in the Likud chairmanship elections told Army Radio.
Feiglin, was "blacklisted" by Benjamin Netanyahu immediately after he was elected as Likud chairman. Netanyahu declared that his first mission as chairman would be to remove radical members and members convicted of criminal offenses from the Likud list.
Supporters of party leader Benjamin Netanyahu had been planning to enact an amendment to the party's constitution that would have barred Feiglin from running.
When elected, Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the vote for the party's list of Knesset candidates by a week in a transparent effort to prevent Feiglin, from running for the Knesset.
Netanyahu hoped to buy time to change the party's constitution and thus deny Feiglin a chance to stand for the list.
Netanyahu held a meeting with Zvi Cohen, Chairman of the Likud's Elections Committee, discussing various schemes to exclude Feiglin, who finished a strong third in the race for party leadership. In the end they came up with a formulation of a proposed amendment to the party's constitution: "A person who has been convicted of an offense, and sentenced to three months of prison or more, will not be eligible to stand for the Likud party Knesset list."
Ynetnews reported that that although Netanyahu marked the removal of Feiglin as his first objective immediately after his election as chairman, he later made it clear that his remarks were directed at members with criminal offenses and not at members with differing ideological views.
Today, the party's Central Committee will vote to accept a proposal to bar from Knesset candidacy anyone who was sentenced to at least three months in prison for a "shame-bearing" crime. The exclusion is expected not to apply to Feiglin, who led a non-violent civil disobedience campaign against the Oslo accords.
Feiglin was sentenced in the past to six months in prison (but performed public service works instead) for having organized anti-Oslo activities against the Rabin government. However, the proposal's "shame" clause was inserted later, and would likely have enabled Feiglin to run.
Israel National News reported that Feiglin's decision not to run is contingent upon a ruling by Likud Elections Committee Chairman Judge Tzvi Cohen that the anti-Oslo crimes of which he was convicted do not bear a "badge of shame."
"I will quit the primaries to select the party's Knesset list immediately after I receive a letter from the chairman of the Likud's election committee stating that my name is cleared." Feiglin said in a press conference. He added that his 'Jewish Leadership' faction would vote in favor of the proposed amendment to bar members convicted of disgraceful criminal offenses from the Likud list.
Feiglin told Israel National News that he was quitting the race because he felt it "would be better for our movement," he said. "Freed of all sorts of political and factional obligations, I will be much better able to dedicate my time to building Manhigut Yehudit. Don't forget, our goal is not necessarily to be in the Knesset, but to take leadership. We have come quite far - I received 12.5% of the vote for party leader, which is only 40-something-thousand votes less than Netanyahu received."
Feiglin explained to Israel National News that he wished to be in the Knesset only as head of the Likud: "The sovereign body in this country is not the people, but rather the Supreme Court, which turns every government more to the left... I fear that if I become just a regular Knesset Member, I will undergo the same process that all the other right-wing and religious parties did, and become part of the problem, giving a democratic veil to 'enlightened Israeli dictatorship.'"
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