Dagan Settlement Faction Wins Big in Likud Primary Vote

The "My Likud" settlement faction achieved unprecedented success in the ruling Likud party's primary elections, with 13 candidates backed by the group securing positions among the top 20 spots on the national list. Four of those candidates landed in the top five positions, while seven made it into the top ten.

The political achievement was underscored by remarkable turnout figures: while national participation in the primary stood at approximately 54%, members of the settlement-focused faction voted at rates exceeding 70%. The community of Har Bracha recorded the highest turnout at roughly 80%, demonstrating what organizers described as exceptional mobilization and organizational discipline among thousands of party members, despite the summer vacation period and ongoing military reserve duty.

A senior Likud minister commented on the faction's influence during the voting, noting that "My Likud" members arrived at polling stations with organized, focused lists, and when approached, typically referred questioners to the group's chairman, Yossi Dagan. The faction now counts more than 8,000 registered party members, making it the second-largest organized group within Likud.

Dagan, who chairs the faction and serves as head of the Samaria Regional Council, chose a symbolic location to film his victory message: during a ceremony marking the return to Kadim, a Samarian settlement, 21 years after its evacuation. "There's no more fitting place to thank you for your mobilization in the primary than here in Kadim, the community we've returned to as part of completing the correction," Dagan said in the video. "Thousands of people from our group voted during an irregular period. People interrupted their vacations and stood at polling stations in the north, and reservists left Gaza and Lebanon just to participate in this effort. You did it in a big way!"

Dagan emphasized that political power translates into action on the ground: "Building our political strength is the direct lesson from the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Samaria, to create real partnerships and build influential power from within the ruling party."

Regarding Likud members of Knesset who didn't secure realistic positions due to reserved slots on the list, Dagan said the faction would work to integrate them later through the Norwegian Law, a mechanism allowing ministers to resign their Knesset seats in favor of the next person on the party list, with the goal of establishing a right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.