The ruling Likud Party’s internal court on Sunday overturned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to cancel the upcoming party primary if it cannot be held because of a possible “wartime situation” and to select its Knesset slate through an appointed committee controlled by the premier.

In its ruling, the court said there is “no room to open even the slightest door to canceling the primary,” which is currently set for August 17, arguing that Likud “is not a one-man party and will lose its character if it becomes one.”

Recent Hebrew media reports said that some Likud lawmakers were concerned that Netanyahu was seeking to avoid holding primaries in order to give him absolute control over the entire slate, a move that could see some backbenchers pushed so far down they would not realistically return to the Knesset after coming national elections.

Amid a tense and volatile standoff between the US and Iran that has seen near-nightly US attacks and Iranian counterattacks for the past two weeks, Israel, which was not involved in the fighting, has been anticipating that it too could be targeted by Iran, which has fired drones and missiles at US allies in the Middle East.

The judges ruled that if security conditions make it impossible to hold the vote as scheduled, the preferred solution is to postpone it or use electronic voting — though this is not currently permitted under the party’s constitution. Either, according to the decision, would be “a thousand times preferable, in our view, to a wholesale violation of the party constitution by not holding a vote at........

© The Times of Israel