ISRAEL'S RIGHT-WING Likud party has chosen a candidate list dominated by hardliners, casting doubt on the ability of party leader Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue peace with the Palestinians if he is elected prime minister in the February general election.
Former prime minister Mr Netanyahu canvassed hard for relatively moderate candidates to be placed high on the Likud list, promoting a number of former Likud politicians, retired army generals, and even a local basketball star and a leading comedian.
However, Likud members voted for an overwhelmingly hawkish list. Benny Begin, the son of former prime minister Menahem Begin, and former Israel army chief Moshe Ya'alon, both hardliners, were the only candidates recommended by Mr Netanyahu to be chosen in the top 10.
Most worrying for the Likud leader was the strong showing for Moshe Feiglin, a religious West Bank settler, who heads the Jewish Leadership faction within the party.
Mr Feiglin was elected number 20 on the Likud list. Two of his followers also stand a good chance of being elected to the Knesset parliament, if the latest poll predictions of 35 seats for the Likud in the 120-member legislature stand firm.
Israel's electoral system is based on a single national constituency list system in which parties list their candidates in the order they wish them to be elected and take the number of seats to which their poll share entitles them.
Mr Feiglin first came to prominence in the mid-1990s, leading a campaign of civil disobedience against the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians. After being convicted of sedition, he joined the Likud, heading the Jewish Leadership faction, essentially a party within a party.
Mr Feiglin believes in a state based on Jewish law and has called for non-Jews to be barred from voting in parliamentary elections. He also urged soldiers to disobey orders to participate in Israel's disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
Mr Netanyahu put on a brave face after the results of the primaries were announced.
"Today we have chosen new leadership for Israel. This is the best team that any party in our country can put forward," Mr Netanyahu said.
However outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert said the Likud used to be a party of peace, but had turned into a party of the extreme right. He warned of diplomatic isolation if the Likud was voted into power. "If Bibi [Netanyahu], Begin, Ya'alon and Feiglin come to power, it will cause significant diplomatic damage to Israel."
The centrist Kadima party, headed by foreign minister Tzipi Livni, hopes that Likud's swing to the right will encourage floating voters to shift allegiance to it.