By Joel C. Rosenberg - (WASHINGTON, D.C., August 15, 2007) -- Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu decisively won the chairmanship of the Likud Party on Tuesday. He's running far ahead in national polls, and now appears well positioned to be elected the next leader of Israel. That said, numerous obstacles still stand in his way. The media hates him, the left hates him, the right sometimes wonders if he has the "fire in the belly" to fight for Israel's security and to re-energize an increasingly exhausted Zionist movement, and the center remains wary of his mercurial leadership style. What's more, elections aren't scheduled until 2010. Bibi is riding high in the polls now, but will it last? Can Bibi come back? Honestly, it's too early to say, but given the leadership crisis facing Israel today (Olmert's approval ratings are at a dismal 8%) -- and the existential threats Israel faces from the combined forces of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, armed and aided by Russia -- I for one certainly hope so. Excerpts from Israeli election coverage. The Jerusalem Post: "Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu was reelected Likud chairman in Tuesday's party primary, defeating the two Likud activists who challenged him -- Moshe Feiglin and Danny Danon -- by a hefty margin. According to the final count, Netanyahu won 73.2 percent of the votes, while Feiglin had 23.4% and Danon 3.4%" Ynetnews: "Re-elected Likud chairman tells Ynet outcome of primary elections proves rival camp has marginal impact on party. In victory speech in Tel Aviv which Feiglin was barred from attending, Netanyahu pledges new leadership for Israel. Surrounded by dozens of supporters and staffers, re-elected Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu looked like an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders late Tuesday night." Haaretz: "Netanyahu is expected to consider steps to limit the strength of Feiglin, a religious settler with a platform that calls for barring Arabs from the Knesset, encouraging non-Jews to emigrate and pulling Israel out of the United Nations" Agence France Presse (from early Tuesday, before the polls closed): "Former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who is set to be re-elected as head of Israel's right-wing Likud party on Tuesday, is a media-savvy arch-hawk determined to move back to the political centre stage. Netanyahu was expected to sweep to victory during a Likud primary with at least 70 percent of the vote, according to internal opinion polls, in a contest against two other candidates. Fifteen months after leading Likud to its biggest-ever electoral defeat, the 57-year-old politician is determined to use his expected victory in the primary to bury the humiliation and return to the country's leadership. Bibi, as Netanyahu is widely known in Israel, is hoping to ride a wave of dissapointment with the ruling Kadima party over scandals and last year's Lebanon war back to the top of the Israeli political spectrum....Netanyahu is the public's first choice to be Israel's next prime minister -- 36 percent favoured him in a recent opinion poll, compared with eight percent for Olmert and 22 percent for former premier Ehud Barak. The same poll showed that Likud would more than double its seats in the Knesset, winning 26, if new elections were held."

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