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Likud (Hebrew: , translit. HaLikud, lit. The Consolidation), officially the LikudNational Liberal Movement, is the major center-right political party[10][11] in Israel. A secular party,[12] it was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's landslide victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had lost power. In addition, it was the first time in Israel that a right-wing party won the plurality of the votes.[13] However, after ruling the country for most of the 1980s, the party lost the Knesset election in 1992. Nevertheless, Likud's candidate Benjamin Netanyahu did win the vote for Prime Minister in 1996 and was given the task of forming a government after the 1996 elections. Netanyahu's government fell apart after a vote of no confidence, which led to elections being called in 1999 and Likud losing power to the One Israel coalition led by Ehud Barak.
In 2001, Likud's Ariel Sharon, who replaced Netanyahu following the 1999 election, defeated Barak in an election called by the prime minister following his resignation. After the party recorded a convincing win in the 2003 elections, Likud saw a major split in 2005 when Sharon left to form the Kadima party. This resulted in Likud slumping to fourth place in the 2006 elections and losing twenty-eight seats in the Knesset. Following the 2009 elections, Likud was able to gain fifteen seats and, with Netanyahu back in control of the party, formed a coalition with fellow right wing party Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas to take control of the government from Kadima, which earned a plurality but not a majority. Netanyahu has been prime minister since and Likud has been the leading vote-getter in each election.
A member of the party is often called a Likudnik (Hebrew: ).[14]
The Likud was formed as a secular party[12] by an alliance of several right-wing parties prior to the 1973 electionsHerut, the Liberal Party, the Free Centre, the National List and the Movement for Greater Israel. Herut had been the nation's largest right-wing party since growing out of the Irgun in 1948. It had already been in coalition with the Liberals since 1965 as Gahal, with Herut as the senior partner. Herut remained the senior partner in the new grouping, which was given the name Likud, meaning "Consolidation", as it represented the consolidation of the Israeli right.[15] It worked as a coalition under Herut's leadership until 1988, when the member parties merged into a single party under the Likud name. From its establishment in 1973, Likud enjoyed great support from blue-collar Sephardim who felt discriminated against by the ruling Alignment.
Likud made a strong showing in its first elections in 1973, reducing the Alignment's lead to 12 seats. The party went on to win the 1977 elections, finishing 11 seats ahead of the Alignment. Begin was able to form a government with the support of the religious parties, consigning the left-wing to opposition for the first time since independence. A former leader of the hard-line paramilitary Irgun, Begin helped initiate the peace process with Egypt, which resulted in the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. Likud was reelected with a significantly reduced mandate in 1981.
Likud has long been a loose alliance between politicians committed to different and sometimes opposing policy preferences and ideologies.[16][17] The 1981 elections highlighted divisions that existed between the populist wing of Likud, headed by David Levy of Herut, and the Liberal wing,[18] who represented a policy agenda of the secular bourgeoisie.[16]
Begin resigned in October 1983 and was succeeded as Likud leader and Prime Minister by Yitzhak Shamir. Shamir, a former commander of the Lehi underground, was widely seen as a hard-liner with an ideological commitment both to the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the growth of which he encouraged, and to the idea of aliyah, facilitating the mass immigration of Jews to Israel from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union. Although Shamir lost the 1984 election, the Alignment was unable to form a government on its own. Likud and the Alignment thus formed a national unity government, with Peres as Prime Minister and Shamir as foreign minister. After two years, Peres and Shamir switched posts. This government remained in power through 1990, when the Alignment pulled out and Shamir stitched together a right-wing coalition that held on until its defeat in 1992 by Labor.
Shamir retired shortly after losing the election. His successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, became the third Likud Prime Minister in May 1996, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu proved to be less hard-line in practice than he made himself out to be rhetorically, and felt pressured by the United States and others to enter negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat, despite his harsh criticism of the Oslo accords and hawkish stance in comparison to Labor.
In 1998, Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to cede territory in the Wye River Memorandum. While accepted by many in the Likud, some Likud MKs, led by Benny Begin (Menachem Begin's son), Michael Kleiner and David Re'em, broke away and formed a new party, named Herut The National Movement, in protest. Yitzhak Shamir (who had expressed harsh disappointment in Netanyahu's leadership), gave the new party his support. Less than a year afterward, Netanyahu's coalition collapsed, resulting in the 1999 election and Labor's Ehud Barak winning the premiership on a platform of immediate settlement of final status issues. Likud spent 19992001 on the opposition benches.
Barak's "all-or-nothing" strategy failed, however, and early elections for Prime Minister were called for March 2001. Surprisingly, Netanyahu declined to be the Likud candidate for Prime Minister, meaning that the fourth Likud premier would be Ariel Sharon. Sharon, unlike past Likud leaders, had been raised in a Labor Zionist environment and had long been seen as something of a maverick. In the face of the Second Intifada, Sharon pursued a varied set of policies, many of which were controversial even within the Likud. The final split came when Sharon announced his policy of unilateral disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. The idea proved extremely divisive within the party.
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Likud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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