{"id":225920,"date":"2026-07-28T10:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/225920\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:31:09","slug":"from-begin-to-benjamin-netanyahu-the-transformation-of-likud-and-israels-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/225920\/","title":{"rendered":"From Begin to Benjamin Netanyahu: The transformation of Likud and Israel\u2019s Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty-three years ago, a small group on the Left persuaded Israel\u2019s leadership to bring thousands of nationalist jihadists from the PLO into the country, led by mass murderer Yasser Arafat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They convinced themselves and others that the gun tucked into his belt would no longer be used for killing, that he now carried an olive branch, and that he had abandoned his grand vision of the phased plan.<\/p>\n

Even when reality stared them in the face, many refused to acknowledge the terrible mistake. They ignored the deception surrounding the supposed cancellation of the Palestinian National Covenant, which called for our destruction, the speeches about jihad and a thousand martyrs on the road to Jerusalem, and the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, invoked from the depths of history in speeches delivered in mosques.<\/p>\n

In a democracy, loyal supporters place their faith in their leaders, while voters accept their authority. That authority carries immense power.<\/p>\n

The leaders of the Left at the time did not have a drop of malice in them. They had hope. They had great dreams. Those dreams were shattered by reality.<\/p>\n

\"PLOPLO chairman Yasser Arafat shakes hands with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as US president Bill Clinton stands between them, after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords at the White House on September 13, 1993. (credit: GARY HERSHORN\/REUTERS)<\/p>\n

The ministers in today\u2019s government, by contrast, are indeed driven by malice. Some are entirely ignorant of the doctrine, thought, and work of the founder of the Herut movement, which later became the powerful political brand known as Likud.<\/p>\n

Yet the leader of today\u2019s Likud, a party emptied of all liberal content, knows the movement\u2019s history very well.<\/p>\n

He was an active and senior partner in the constitutional revolution advanced by Menachem Begin<\/a> with the help of his friend and confidant Dan Meridor. Meridor visited Begin at his home every week, with the precision of a Swiss clock, shortly before the start of Shabbat, until only a few weeks before Begin\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

On May 18, 1993, Benjamin Netanyahu was already Likud chairman when the party conference adopted resolutions calling for the constitutional revolution to continue:<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the years of Likud government, a constitutional revolution began in Israel, and Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation were enacted. Fundamental human rights are now protected, not only against the tyranny of the government, but also against unfair harm by the legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cLikud will work to complete the legislation of Basic Law: Fundamental Human Rights, which is one of the foundations of Likud\u2019s worldview, in order to enshrine in basic legislation equality before the law, freedom of expression, freedom of protest, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of religion, the right to a fair trial, and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cLikud will work to enact Basic Law: Legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the completion of these two basic laws, a constitution for Israel will effectively be completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cLikud will work to strengthen the rule of law in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe supremacy of the law and the subordination of all authorities to the laws of the state will be guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Line by line, these were historic decisions, recorded openly and publicly.<\/p>\n

They were the product of Begin\u2019s decades of work. As early as 1952, he sought to distance the Judicial Selection Committee from politicians, even proposing that a fourth judge replace a government representative.<\/p>\n

He worked to strengthen the status and complete independence of the attorney general, including while serving as prime minister:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attorney general of the State of Israel has a special status … Because of that status, the government does not interfere in the attorney general\u2019s considerations, neither a government ministry nor the government as such. The attorney general has reached certain conclusions, and the government will not overturn them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has no authority to do so, and it is forbidden from interfering in his considerations. The government upholds the principle of the supremacy of the law over every executive authority of the state, including the government itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning in the opposite direction<\/p>\n

Begin worked to guarantee everyone the right to petition the High Court of Justice. He supported the court\u2019s authority to strike down Knesset legislation and impose limits on the legislature, among many other measures.<\/p>\n

This was the work of nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n

On one side stood Begin. On the other stood outgoing Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, a former member of the Irgun, who signed the 1995 Bank Mizrahi ruling as he concluded his presidency.<\/p>\n

That was the constitutional revolution.<\/p>\n

The claims that Justice Aharon Barak<\/a> unlawfully seized powers for himself are lies and distortions. They have no basis in reality.<\/p>\n

Everything was authorized. Everything was within the law. Everything was stated openly from the Knesset podium and in public speeches. It was all part of an impressive architecture of political thought, expressed through legislation.<\/p>\n

For many years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended all of it. There are recordings, speeches, and interviews. He proudly championed the constitutional revolution, along with the authority and independence of the courts.<\/p>\n

But the years passed, and memories faded.<\/p>\n

Now, driven by an immediate need to bring an end to his trial, Netanyahu has made a complete reversal and joined forces with Israel\u2019s most extreme radicals. He embraced a Kahanist, fascist group and fused it into his parliamentary faction.<\/p>\n

Through a campaign of destruction, vilification, and the complete delegitimization of Supreme Court justices and every institution charged with upholding the rule of law, he is carrying out a counterrevolution against everything he once helped build.<\/p>\n

This serves him on two fronts: in his personal criminal proceedings and in his efforts to prevent the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into all the events that preceded the October 7 massacre.<\/p>\n

He rejects all responsibility for that disaster while leveling horrific and false accusations against others.<\/p>\n

To understand the gravity of this moment, one need only look at Netanyahu\u2019s partners and those fanning the flames of this disgraceful campaign: Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bentzi Gopstein, Baruch Marzel, and Michael Ben-Ari.<\/p>\n

All were founders of Otzma Yehudit and heirs to Meir Kahane.<\/p>\n

There is no longer even the slightest gap between the positions of the coalition\u2019s members. They march beneath one flag and toward one objective.<\/p>\n

Minister May Golan candidly said only two weeks ago that \u201cthere are not many ideological differences between Otzma Yehudit and Likud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The radicalism of Kahanism\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a government meeting on May 28, 2023, Justice Minister Yariv Levin said, \u201cArabs are buying apartments in Jewish communities in the Galilee, and this is causing Jews to leave those cities because they are not prepared to live with Arabs. We must ensure that there are judges on the Supreme Court who understand this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had a justice minister in the Netherlands or Germany spoken this way about Jews, we would all understand the source of such an abomination.<\/p>\n

This is absolute Kahanism, rooted in the principle of racial separation.<\/p>\n

These are the members of Israel\u2019s government, and no one raises a voice in protest.<\/p>\n

Every last one of them attacks the fortress of human liberty and Begin\u2019s principle of the supremacy of the law, morning and night.<\/p>\n

They deliberately spread repulsive conspiracy theories and outright blood libels accusing the heads of the security establishment of treason, espionage, and rebellion. They claim that these officials stabbed the nation in the back \u2013 before the massacre and continuing to this day.<\/p>\n

They spread baseless allegations about a delusional deep state and mysterious forces that supposedly include even the Supreme Court\u2019s most conservative judges, along with the other institutions responsible for upholding the rule of law.<\/p>\n

Justices Noam Sohlberg, David Mintz, Yael Willner, Gila Canfy Steinitz, and Yechiel Kasher, from the court\u2019s staunchest conservatives to its activists, have all become targets for government ministers, who brand them \u201cdictators in black robes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a complete abandonment of reason. It is madness, coupled with malice.<\/p>\n

It is no coincidence that Netanyahu remains silent whenever Begin and Netanyahu\u2019s own political past are mentioned.<\/p>\n

This is the most serious deception in Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Its sole objective is government without checks, restraints, or limits.<\/p>\n

A great fire has taken hold among the cedars, a conflagration of Kahanism. We will be able to extinguish it and repair the damage only by working together after Election Day.<\/p>\n

This abominable Kahanist fusion, which has destroyed what was once a magnificent party, must be broken apart.<\/p>\n

Likud has been contaminated by the doctrine of Meir Kahane<\/a>, and the rot has eaten through to its core.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven a majority in the House of Representatives must be limited, in order to guarantee the liberty of the individual and the citizen through the supremacy of the law.\u201d \u2013 Menachem Begin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty-three years ago, a small group on the Left persuaded Israel\u2019s leadership to bring thousands of nationalist jihadists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[18888,41,1152,37,16705,42369,19306,17667,81],"class_list":["post-225920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-basic-law","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-democracy","tag-israel","tag-likud","tag-meir-kahane","tag-menachem-begin","tag-plo","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116997147066751530","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}