National Union MKs slammed Habayit Hayehudi leadership candidate Naftali Bennett
on Thursday, after Bennett told sources within his party that, should he win, he
would get rid of three-fourths of the National Union MKs, including MK Ya’acov
Katz, in the parties’ planned unity deal.
Bennett said he will take the
top spot in a united list, followed by MK Uri Ariel (National Union), who would
have priority for any ministerial positions offered in coalition
negotiations.
Katz is sick of politics and plans to leave, so Uri Ariel
will only be the Tekuma party member left in the National Union, Bennett told a
party source in a closed meeting.
Bennett continued by saying that he
wouldn’t put National Union MKs Arieh Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari on the list, and
that they can run as a separate, extreme-right party.
“Remind me who
Naftali Bennett is?” Eldad quipped, when asked for a reaction.
“He just
got into politics and he already thinks he can make everyone do whatever he
wants?” a high-ranking National Union source fumed.
A source in Katz’s
office said the National Union chairman is furious, and Bennett’s claims are
completely false.
Katz would not respond to Bennett’s statement, because
he did not hear it directly from the Habayit Hayehudi candidate, but asserted
that “anyone who does not want a united list hates Israel.”
“We will not
forgive the unreasonable margins in the two parties that will try to prevent
unity. The public wants unity, and if we run together, we will get over 10 seats
in the Knesset and take seats from Likud, Yisrael Beytenu and Shas,” Katz
added.
“There are some in National Union who don’t want Bennett, and some
in Habayit Hayehudi who do not want Ben-Ari, but we will all run together. All
of us, all of us, all of us,” he emphasized. “There is no other
option.”
“If religious Zionism runs in two separate lists in the next
election, it will be Bennett’s fault,” Ben-Ari said. “If Bennett really said
those things, it shows that, although he hasn’t proved his political worth or
that he has any public support, he is already busy with splits, fights and
denials.”
The source in Katz’s office also explained that earlier this
year, when elections were expected to be held in September and Katz and
incumbent Habayit Hayehudi chairman Science and Technology Minister Daniel
Herschkowitz agreed to run together, they did not finalize who would lead the
list.
During the Habayit Hayehudi membership drive, which ends in
September, and ahead of the primary in November, National Union sent the unity
agreement to all three Habayit Hayehudi leadership candidates - Bennett,
Herschkowitz and MK Zevulun Orlev. All three have yet to sign, although they
pledged support for a joint list publicly and in talks with Katz.
A
spokesman for Bennett denied that the Habayit Hayehudi leader said he would
remove three out of four National Union MKs from the list, but admitted he was
not in the meeting with the party source.
“He definitely never said that,
and we are happy that Katz will be on the united list,” the spokesman said.
“We’re less excited about Ben-Ari. Anything else is just people's
interpretations and predictions on what the united list will look like. It is
irrelevant to us, and certainly is not our position.”