In the News: Ha'aretz: In Likud Event, Hard-line Leader and Netanyahu Nemesis Gets all the Love

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/in-likud-event-hard-line-leader-and-netanyahu-nemesis-gets-all-the-love-1.415975

8 Adar 5772 (March 2, '12)

By Ophir Bar-Zohar

The values of extreme-right activist Moshe Feiglin are the values of the Likud, said Minister Gilad Erdan at an event to mark Feiglin's success in the party's recent leadership primaries.

Likud ministers and Knesset members expressed support for Feiglin and his ideology at the conference in Rishon Letzion on Wednesday.

Feiglin, head of the Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud, won almost a quarter of the votes in the primaries at the end of January.

Hundreds of Likud activists attended Wednesday's event, including Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan and MKs Danny Danon, Tzipi Hotovely, Zeev Elkin, Miri Regev and Ayoob Kara.

"I've come directly from Itamar [a settlement in the West Bank]," said Katz at the conference. "There will be many more Itamars throughout Israel."

Katz said he was against demolishing homes in Migron, a West Bank outpost due to be evacuated and dismantled by High Court order. "Whom will that appease? The Palestinians? Will they sign a peace agreement if you take a house down in Migron?"

Erdan congratulated "my friend Moshe Feiglin for his extremely impressive achievement in the elections... That's democracy. Jewish Leadership acts on the values of democracy. You represent values that have guided the Likud," he said.

"In the world a leader can be very talented and make only rational decisions," Erdan added, "but if we acted here on the basis of rational decisions [alone] I don't think they would have established the state when they did. A leader in Israel must have faith."

Regev also commended Feiglin on his "great success," and said he had beaten the system. "There's room for everyone in the Likud. You have a way and you're not afraid," she said.

"All of us, or most of us, are people who follow the winners like a herd," Regev added. "We don't like being in minority groups or having the media criticize us... Today we are here because you have beaten the system... We must stop being afraid of telling our truth, even if it is not popular."

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