Deputy defense minister Danny Danon presented a formidable challenge to US Secretary of State John Kerry Tuesday night when he told his loyalists that from next week onward, diplomatic plans must pass a vote in the hawkish Likud central committee.
Danon was expected to win the ceremonial title of Likud convention chairman in Tuesday's race, whose results were not available by press time. He is also the leading candidate for the powerful post of Likud central committee chairman in an election that will be held Sunday.
"The party has been in a coma lately," Danon told his loyalists at a muscle-flexing rally in Tel Aviv. "We will help lift up the Likud with energy like it had was when I was a child. We will restore the party's soul."
Danon said he was more committed than ever to the goal he set when he entered politics: preventing Israel from giving up land in Judea and Samaria. He mocked the Left's ability to stop him from achieving that goal.
"The weak left doesn't know how to deal with ideas, principles, or ideology," Danon told the activists. "To maintain the land of Israel, we need to do it with political work. We cannot afford to sit on our hands."
Danon reassured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he need not worry about him using the central committee to act against him personally. He noted that the Likud has had only four leaders since 1948, unlike the Left that has had more than a dozen.
"We don't act against our party chairman," Danon said. "We don't undermine our leaders like the Left does. They can't teach us loyalty."
Besides the chairmanship of their own committee, the Likud's 3600 central committee members will be eligible to vote on Sunday for chairman of the Likud's governing secretariat, its ideological committee, and its internal court. The two candidates for the secretariat, Transportation Minister Israel Katz and MK Miri Regev, spent Tuesday campaigning at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds.