Herut: The National Movement

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Herut (חרות "Freedom") or Herut: The National Movement is a right wing Israeli party. It is the ideological successor to the historical Herut movement (contrary to the Likud Party, which abandonded its attachment to the teachings of Ze'ev Jabotinsky.)

In 1998 three Likud members of the Israeli Knesset, led by Michael Kleiner and Benny Begin, Menachem Begin's son, left the Likud over disagreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the concessions to the Palestinians in 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 from political life. He was quoted as saying that 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 for 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 Kach party. Herut failed to gather a single seat in these elections.

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