The Likud Party is a major right-wing political party in [[Israel]]. Its surprising victory in the May 1977 national elections ended twenty-nine years of [[Mapai Party|Mapai]] and [[Labor Party]] domination of the political process in [[Israel]]. This brought to power a government that was even more committed than Labor to the [[Samson Option]] and the necessity of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. The Likud Party, led by [[Menachem Begin]], represented a populist-nationalist view of a greater [[Israel]] with a right to permanent control of the [[West Bank]].[^1] In 1984, neither [[Labor Party|Labor]] nor Likud achieved a majority in the national elections. A national unity coalition was negotiated, with [[Shimon Peres]] and [[Yitzhak Shamir]] sharing power: Peres would serve as prime minister and Shamir as foreign minister until September 1986, when they would trade jobs. The slush fund from arms sales financed the [[Likud Party]] and "black" operations.[^2] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 19. [^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 21.