The Nationalist Camp, an influential Likud pressure group, retracted its push for Habayit Hayehudi members to vote in
the Likud primary late Saturday night, following a Jerusalem Post investigation
that exposed the illegality of doing so.
In an email obtained by the
Post, Natan Englesman, one of the Nationalist Camp’s leaders, wrote a
“clarification of the previous email on voting in the primaries of two different
parties.”
“After I learned it is illegal to vote in the primaries of two
different parties, I take back the previous email I sent on the matter, and call
for those who joined Habayit Hayehudi to not vote in the Likud primary,”
Englesman wrote hours before the Likud primary ballots opened, shortly after the
Post published the contents of his previous email.
Earlier Saturday,
Englesman asked new Habayit Hayehudi members who had formerly been members of
Likud to attempt to vote in Sunday’s primary.
The email also contained
recommendations of Likud candidates they think would best represent the
interests of those who support and live in Judea and Samaria, such as Manhigut
Yehudit leader Moshe Feiglin, Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister
Yuli Edelstein, coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin, MKs Tzipi Hotovely, Yariv Levin,
Haim Katz and others.
It is illegal to be a member of more than one party
and, according to the law, it is the individual’s responsibility to leave a
party when he or she joins another.
The Justice Ministry compared the
lists of several political parties on October 28, and found that 2,800 people
were members of both Likud and Habayit Hayehudi, according to a report by
political blogger and former Ma’ariv reporter Tal Schneider. Another 500 were
found to be members of both Likud and Labor.