Report: Senior Likud officials plot to replace Netanyahu

A report naming only anonymous Likud sources claims senior party officials are seeking to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

By World Israel News Staff

On Sunday, Arutz Sheva published a report claiming that current senior Likud officials are working behind the scenes to “replace” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the party chairman.

The Arutz Sheva report did not name any of the officials it quoted, but claimed they seek Netanyahu’s ouster because he “has abandoned the goals of the party and the right-wing agenda, in favor of dealing with his personal affairs.”

Among the issues cited in the report are Netanyahu’s failure to move forward with Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and his “preoccupation” with “political survival,” an apparent reference to the three corruption cases he is fighting in the courts.

“Netanyahu presented himself as a right-winger and a right-wing leader, but in fact acted to promote left-wing policy,” said the unnamed officials quoted by Arutz Sheva.

In addition to replacing Netanyahu, the report claims the Likud officials are also contemplating creating an alternative right-wing faction to compete with the Netanyahu-helmed Likud.

The Arutz Sheva report was published on the same day that Israel’s Channel 13 broadcast a segment featuring comments from the Likud’s Michal Shir, which were highly critical of the prime minister’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Shir also took aim at the spiraling economic crisis in Israel, suggesting that Netanyahu’s true focus remains on his legal woes.

In the past, Shir served as an aide to one of Netanyahu’s primary inter-party rivals, MK Gideon Sa’ar. Both Shir and Sa’ar sought to challenge Netanyahu in a Likud primary last year.