Profile: The Likud party

The party created in 1973 is expected to win in the February 10 polls.

Israel election
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Likud’s strong showing in recent elections signifies a right-wing shift in Israeli politics [EPA]

Benyamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud party, has been tasked by the Israeli president Shimon Peres with forming a new government, in the wake of the country’s closest general election in years. 

Likud, a right-wing party, took 27 seats in the Israeli general election, one behind the centrist party Kadima. The fact that the Labour party finished a distant fourth in the poll signifies a shift to the right in Israeli politics.

The party, which has often played on the insecurities of the Israeli electorate, played its ‘security card’ in the run up to the election, emphasising that it would take a tough line against Palestinian Hamas.     

Ari Shavit, a columnist at the Israeli daily Haaretz, told Al Jazeera: “Likud is banking on fear and the fact that attempts to create a moderate Israel and a moderate Israeli policy seem to have failed.”

“In fact, it has consistently played up the Jewish fear that the Arabs will ‘throw us to the sea’.”

“It’s banking on the fact that people in this country, sadly enough, do not believe any more in peace the way they did in the 90s.”

The Likud party (meaning ‘consolidation’ in Hebrew) came into existence with the amalgamation of several right-wing liberal parties in 1973. It came to power for the first time in 1979, largely on the back of support from blue-collar Sephardim Jews.

Its influence waned during the 1990s and it has won only one Knesset election since 1992.

However, Netanyahu, Likud’s candidate for prime minister, did win the popular vote in 1996.

Likud returned to power in 2003 under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, but lost again in 2006 after Sharon left Likud to form the Kadima party.

Economic policies

The Likud party supports free market capitalism and liberal economic policies. 

As finance minister, Netanyahu pushed through sweeping tax reforms and privatised many government owned entities.

When in government, it also signed free-trade agreements with the European Union and the US, and attracted foreign capital in unprecedented numbers which reinvigorated Israel’s economy.

Ideology

The Likud party charter espouses the doctrine of “Greater Israel”, maintaining that the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 – the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights – should be part of the state of Israel.

The 1999 Likud party platform “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river”.

Despite its conservative right-wing roots, Likud was the first Israeli party to negotiate with the Arabs in 1979.

Menachem Begin, the then Likud prime minister, signed the Camp David accords and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty with Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, for which both later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

But Likud’s bitter opposition to the 1993 Oslo accords, which inflamed popular sentiment in Israel, has often been blamed for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the then prime minister of Israel who had negotiated with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Besides opposition to Palestinian statehood, Likud also supports the establishment and expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In fact, Netanyahu is on record as saying that Israeli settlements in the West Bank will increase if he forms a government in the wake of the February 2009 elections.

Source: Al Jazeera