A Phoenix Rises in Zion

Breaking news, we will be watching this in the days to come.

Personally, and this is MY opinion, this is fantastic news for Israel.

Netanyahu sweeps Israel's Likud race

JERUSALEM - Benjamin Netanyahu easily defeated a radical Jewish settler in the race to lead Israel's hardline Likud Party on Tuesday, a party official said, boosting his ambitions to reclaim the country's premiership.

While Netanyahu's victory had been all but assured, a strong showing by challenger Moshe Feiglin could have shored up Israel's extreme right and hurt Netanyahu's efforts to rehabilitate Likud after it was trounced in national elections last year. Recent polls have crowned Netanyahu, Likud's leader since late 2005, as the front-runner for Israel's top job.

With more than 80 percent of the primary votes tallied, Netanyahu was out way ahead with 73 percent to Feiglin's 22 percent, party executive director Gad Arieli said. World Likud Party Chairman Danny Danon trailed with 4 percent. Final results were expected early Wednesday.

In his victory speech, Netanyahu made it clear that the race was a dress rehearsal for a much bigger contest.

"Tonight the internal contest ended, and as of tomorrow, we will focus our efforts on bringing a new leadership to Israel," Netanyahu told dozens of cheering supporters in Tel Aviv.

A telegenic politician and self-described hawk, the M.I.T.-educated Netanyahu speaks flawless, American-accented English. He's tough on defense issues and hands-off on the economy, but in recent months has been trying to position himself in the political center to try to lure moderate voters.

"It's clear that Netanyahu is a right-wing man, but a right-wing man who is always winking at the center," political commentator Hanan Crystal said Tuesday.

I am going to predict that there is going to be a firestorm of protestation and "slamming" from the dinosaur media. I predict that the dinosaur media will dig up every bit of dirt that they can to try to discredit Netanyahu as much as they can here in the U.S. I predict much grumbling from the United Nations.

I also am going to predict that Iran is going to start being far more cautious in how they go about things in the near future...

More to come as this develops.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

.