Editing Menachem Begin (section)

===Likud chairmanship===
[[File:Flickr - Government Press Office (GPO) - Begin in the Knesset.jpg|thumb|Begin addressing the Knesset in 1974]]
In 1973, Begin agreed to a plan by [[Ariel Sharon]] to form a larger bloc of opposition parties, made up from Gahal, the [[Free Centre]], and other smaller groups. They came through with a tenuous alliance called the [[Likud]] ("Consolidation"). In the elections held later that year, two months after the [[Yom Kippur War]], the Likud won a considerable share of the votes, though with 39 seats still remained in opposition.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

Yet the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War saw ensuing public disenchantment with the Alignment. Voices of criticism about the government's misconduct of the war gave rise to growing public resentment. Personifying the antithesis to the Alignment's socialist ethos, Begin appealed to many [[Mizrahi Jews|Mizrahi]] Israelis, mostly first and second generation [[Jewish exodus from Arab lands|Jewish refugees from Arab countries]], who felt they were continuously being treated by the establishment as second-class citizens. His open embrace of Judaism stood in stark contrast to the Alignment's secularism, which alienated Mizrahi voters and drew many of them to support Begin, becoming his burgeoning political base. In the years 1974–77 [[Yitzhak Rabin]]'s government suffered from instability due to infighting within the labor party (Rabin and [[Shimon Peres]]) and the shift to the right by the National Religious Party, as well as numerous corruption scandals. All these weakened the labor camp and finally allowed Begin to capture the center stage of Israeli politics.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

In 1977 Begin declared that "between [[From the river to the sea|the [Mediterranean] Sea and the Jordan River]] there shall only be Israeli sovereignty".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Steinberg |first1=Gerald M. |last2=Rubinovitz |first2=Ziv |title=Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process Between Ideology and Political Realism |date=2019 |publisher=Indiana University Press |page=1976}}</ref>