Last winter, old friends Ministers Dan Meridor and Benny Begin sat next to one another at one of the Likud faction’s weekly meetings. The two ministers shrunk into their chairs as they watched yet another fire-and-brimstone performance against the Supreme Court. This one was led by the party’s right-wing department, the darlings of the settlers: Knesset members Tzipi Hotovely, Danny Danon and Zeev Elkin.

Those were the days when the Likud raged over the High Court of Justice’ directive to evacuate the houses of the illegal Migron hilltop outpost, which was built on private land. Elkin and other Knesset Members tried to initiate a “High Court bypass law.” They faced a wall of opposition — Meridor, Begin and Minister Michael (Miki) Eitan who succeeded in thwarting the proposed bill.

“I feel like an alien from outer space,” whispered Begin in Meridor’s ear. Meridor shared Begin’s feelings of disconnection, of being out of the loop or just plain unpopular, as the children say. Less than a year later, on the night that the results of the Likud primaries were received, these three ministers found themselves far from the top of the party’s list for the Knesset. The extreme Right-wing groups who took control of the Likud from the inside — mostly residents of the settlements — sent them packing. Instead, they placed Hotovely, Danon and Elkin at the top of the list. The three champions of the rule of law, derogatorily nicknamed the “bleeding hearts” by former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, stood no chance and were politically eliminated.

On that same night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that in spite of the primary results, he wanted to keep Begin and Meridor “next to him.” This implied that he would find ministerial roles in his government for them. But even if Netanyahu really meant what he said, once the elections were over he found himself with a shrunken party and a severe deficit in ministerial functions. Thus, there is almost no chance at all for Netanyahu to carry out his initial intentions.