Sa’ar and Barkat trade blows over Likud leadership primary

MK Gideon Sa’ar, who is challenging Netanyahu for the leadership of Likud, spars with the party’s MK Nir Barkat over the prospect of a leadership primary.

The first volley comes from Barkat, who says, without naming Sa’ar, that “friends within [the party] are openly coordinated with MKs from the left, and trying to defect and use their votes to establish a leftist government.”

Sa’ar, in response, recalls the 2006 elections, when Barkat, as Jerusalem mayor, was a member of the rival Kadima party, which swept the vote.

“When I was fighting for Likud, which was left with 12 seats, Barkat was celebrating with champagne at the headquarters of Kadima, in which he was a member,” Sa’ar says.

“After only a few days in the Knesset,” Barkat is launching an “incitement campaign against me,” Sa’ar continues.

Likud’s most senior ministers have pointedly remained mum on the prospect of a leadership primary.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan, and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, among others, are all straddling the sidelines, as Netanyahu clings to power.

— with AP