Right-leaning Likud members aim to block any agreement Netanyahu makes with PA

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon on Sunday convened the heads of right-wing groups inside the Likud central committee he heads to plan strategies for blocking Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from advancing an interim agreement with the PA.

The meeting was intended to counter-balance pressure to move the diplomatic process forward that Netanyahu is expected to encounter in Monday’s meeting with US President Barack Obama and over the next several months.

Danon stressed that the event was not an anti- Netanyahu meeting. He said the activists made a point of focusing their criticism on the head of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, repeatedly citing her speech to the J Street conference in Washington.

“We won’t sit silently while Livni cooks an unacceptable deal,” Danon said. “We can’t let there be industrial quiet.”

The activists decided to focus their pressure on the Likud’s top four ministers: Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan and Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom. The activists, who are close to the ministers, will push them to make public comments opposing an interim agreement with the Palestinians.

That strategy was effective in a successful pressure campaign opposing extending a 10-month construction moratorium in Judea and Samaria three years ago.

A Likud central committee member loyal to MK Moshe Feiglin suggested getting lawmakers to rebel against the coalition on key issues unrelated to the Palestinians. But the consensus in the meeting opposed taking such a drastic step at this stage.

Some of the same central committee members were among the signatories of a full-page ad in Hebrew papers on Sunday that praised two ministers, four deputy ministers and four more MKs for statements they have made against giving up land. The ministers were Erdan and Transportation Minister Israel Katz.

Another full-page ad in the same papers called upon Sa’ar, Erdan, Ya’alon and Shalom to stop further releases of Palestinian terrorists.

The ad, which was taken out by families of terror victims, called upon the public to sign an online petition that has already been endorsed by more than 31,000 people.

Another campaign against concessions to the Palestinians will begin soon by the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The campaign will feature hawkish quotes by Netanyahu from his 1995 book, A Place Under the Sun.