{"id":979494,"date":"2026-08-04T06:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T06:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/979494\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T06:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T06:12:23","slug":"settlers-said-to-torch-cars-in-west-bank-graffiti-messages-against-embattled-idf-general-bluth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/979494\/","title":{"rendered":"Settlers said to torch cars in West Bank, graffiti messages against embattled IDF general Bluth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tIn blow to PM and current MKs, Likud court rules sitting lawmakers can\u2019t run for district spots<\/a><\/p>\n

The ruling Likud party\u2019s top court overturns a measure letting sitting and former Knesset members, ministers and deputy ministers compete for slots reserved for districts in the upcoming August 17 primaries, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s attempt to satisfy his lawmakers by giving them a greater chance at political survival.<\/p>\n

For decades, Likud\u2019s reserved spots for districts have only been available for new MKs, acting as a diversifying tool that gives chances for new figures to make it into the Knesset.<\/p>\n

But amid opinion polls that consistently show Likud getting around 22-24 seats in the October 27 election, significantly down from its current 32, Netanyahu had heavily campaigned for the Likud Central Committee to approve a change letting current and former lawmakers \u2014 and ministers and deputy ministers \u2014 compete for those spots.<\/p>\n

In the vote last week, the measure was passed with just a five-vote margin after more than 3,400 members voted. Other measures changing the primaries procedures and granting Netanyahu an unprecedented eight reserved slots in the top 29 places passed with a much wider margin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But party activists immediately petitioned the Likud court against the districts result, demanding a revote.<\/p>\n

Court chief Michael Kleiner rules overnight that the tiny margin fails to convince that the Central Committee indeed wished to change the decades-old practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cMKs competing for the districts contradicts the [Likud] constitution since it harms the value of equality,\u201d Kleiner rules, adding that the district slots \u201chave always been a protected space that enabled new leadership to sprout on fair conditions\u2026 and that started the careers of most [current] Likud ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision means the current Likud MKs, ministers and deputy ministers have to compete for the non-district, non-reserved spots, which means many of them will almost certainly fail to enter the next Knesset.<\/p>\n

The district slots are the 27th spot on the party slate \u2014 reserved for the Jerusalem, West Bank and Shfela districts \u2014 as well as the 28th, reserved for the Tel Aviv and Dan districts, the 30th, reserved for the Galilee and valleys districts, and the 31st, reserved for the Negev district.<\/p>\n

Those slots are realistic assuming Likud is part of the next government, given Israel\u2019s so-called Norwegian Law, which allows ministers and deputy ministers to resign as MKs while guaranteeing they can return to the parliament if they resign.<\/p>\n

The court also rules that sitting MKs who want to compete for slots reserved for women or ethnic or religious minorities must resign from the Knesset before the primaries and not use state money for their campaigns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In blow to PM and current MKs, Likud court rules sitting lawmakers can\u2019t run for district spots The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":979495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,138135,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-979494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-liveblog","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117035764732657345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/979495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}