Likud grants Netanyahu 8 slots on Knesset list, option to nix primaries in wartime

A key internal Likud panel on Sunday agreed to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eight reserved slots on the Knesset list and to cancel the upcoming party primary altogether if it cannot be held because of a possible “wartime situation,” effectively capitulating to the premier’s monthslong push for unprecedented control over the party’s candidate list.

Under the plan, the reserved slots will not require any further approval by the party’s 4,500-member Central Committee, which was supposed to vote on the matter on Thursday.

The Likud Constitution Committee, chaired by MK Haim Katz, also authorized Netanyahu to convene a five-member organizing committee of Likud mayors to determine the party’s candidate list if gathering restrictions or other security conditions prevent the party’s primary from taking place.

Addressing committee members, Netanyahu reportedly claimed that he remains “in favor of a primary,” but argued that “there is a possibility that we could find ourselves in an exceptional security situation that would make it difficult to hold campaign events.”

“It could fall on the day of the vote or beforehand, and that would make voting difficult,” he said.

The decision gives Netanyahu both the enlarged quota of reserved slots he had demanded and a contingency route to replace the primary with a committee, after he previously threatened to cancel the internal election altogether if his demands were not met, despite previous resistance from Likud lawmakers and local authority heads, who opposed both measures.

The approval comes days after a court temporarily halted a previous vote on the proposed primary rules following a legal challenge by the Likud Social Forum, which alleged procedural and non-democratic flaws. As part of the agreement, the party’s primary is expected to be postponed until August 17.

Netanyahu’s proposal was cleared for the committee’s approval after an internal party tribunal blocked attempts to introduce a competing proposal, following a tense overnight hearing, Hebrew media outlets reported on Sunday.

Any such competing proposals, the court reportedly said, would amount to “changing the rules in the middle of the game.”

The tribunal ruled that conference delegates must first vote on primary voting regulations approved last week by the Constitution Committee and backed by Netanyahu, rejecting attempts to introduce alternate rules before that vote is held.

According to reports, the Likud court also ruled that delegates will hold a separate vote on whether current and former ministers and Knesset members should be allowed to compete for slots on the party slate reserved for specific districts – the central point of contention in the dispute.

Netanyahu’s push to increase his influence over the electoral list has sparked fierce opposition within Likud, led by senior MK David Bitan.

In a video posted online on Sunday ahead of the committee vote, Bitan slammed Katz, charging that he is “continuing his exploits to harm the democratic processes in the Likud.”

Bitan accused Katz of trying to “create a faction within a faction” within the Likud and expressed concern over the permanence of the proposal.

“Today, we vote because of Netanyahu; tomorrow someone new will come and receive those reserved spots,” he said.

Likud uses a complex primary system to determine much, though not all, of its candidate list, and has long prided itself on its internal democratic processes. It is one of only a handful of Israeli parties that hold primaries to select both its leader and Knesset slate, alongside the left-wing The Democrats Party, which is set to hold internal elections on July 20, and the Arab-majority Hadash, which held a primary in May.

The premier’s push for reserved slots, which has long faced resistance from within the party, comes amid concerns that primaries could elevate candidates who are highly popular among the Likud base — including MK Tally Gotliv and ministers Shlomo Karhi and May Golan — but who internal party polling suggests are less appealing to moderate right-wing and swing voters whose support could prove decisive in the upcoming national election.

Currently the largest party in the Knesset, with 32 seats, polls conducted in recent months have generally projected Likud dropping to around 22-23 seats, bringing it neck-and-neck with or only slightly overtaking the opposition’s Yashar Party led by Gadi Eisenkot, which has been steadily rising in the polls for months, and the Together slate of former prime ministers, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

A Channel 13 poll aired Wednesday showed that the bloc of Zionist opposition parties would win a 61-seat majority in the Knesset and be able to form a government, the first major poll showing such a result in over a month.

Meanwhile, former deputy foreign minister and New Hope MK Sharren Haskel petitioned the High Court of Justice on Sunday to order Likud and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope to formally complete their merger, arguing the parties have deliberately left the process unfinished to prevent her from splitting off as a one-member faction and taking with her the state funding attached to her Knesset seat.

Haskel, who entered the Knesset as part of Sa’ar’s New Hope party, opposed its March 2025 merger with Likud and has refused to run on the joint list.

While the two parties have since functioned as what she describes as “a single political entity,” with Sa’ar expected to secure a reserved spot on the Likud list and his lawmakers running in the party’s primaries, Haskel alleged that the parties have “deliberately refrained” from submitting the merger for formal approval by the Knesset House Committee to prevent her from leaving.

Under the law, an MK who opposes the merger of their party with another faction is entitled to break away as a one-member faction and keep the share of publicly funded state party financing tied to their Knesset seat.

The petition follows Haskel’s resignation last week from her position in government after the Knesset passed a law banning the arrests of Haredi draft dodgers. She has since announced the launch of her new political party, “Israel First,” following months of speculation over the possible formation of a new breakaway Likud party led by former Likud MK Yuli Edelstein and former minister Gilad Erdan.

The episode also marked the latest escalation in Haskel’s increasingly public rift with Sa’ar, following a widely circulated handwritten resignation note in which she accused the foreign minister of betrayal, writing: “You lied to me. You lied to the nation of Israel.”

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