Herut The National Movement or simply Herut is a right wing Israeli party. It is not to be confused with the historical Herut movement which is nowadays the main part of the Likud movement.

In 1998 three Likud members of the Israeli Knesset, led by Benny Begin , Menachem Begin's son, left the Likud over disagreement with the Wye accords. They formed a new party and named it Herut, to signify their belief that they are the true continuation of the Herut movement of Menachem Begin.

In 1999, facing lack of popular support for Herut, Benny Begin resigned the political life. He was cited as saying he had become a "crowd leader with no crowds". Michael Kleiner replaced him as chairman of Herut, which joined Moledet and Tkuma to form a coalition, the National Union, which received 3 seats in the Knesset, one of which went to Kleiner.

In 2003, Herut made the first attempt to run to the Knesset on its own. It chose the Hebrew letters נץ, meaning hawk, and the slogan "the 'hawkest' in the right". Kleiner's second on the list was Baruch Marzel, a former member of the outlawed racist Kach party. Herut failed to gather a single seat in these elections.

External links

Home page, last updated January 2003.