Bayit Yehudi plotting to bring down leader Rafi Peretz

A meeting has been called by Bayit Yehudi MK Moti Yogev and former MK and deputy defense minister Eli Ben-Dahan for party members to discuss ways to “renew and rehabilitate” Bayit Yehudi.

By JEREMY SHARON
Israel's Education minister Rafi Peretz (photo credit: MENAHEM KAHANA / REUTERS)
Israel's Education minister Rafi Peretz
(photo credit: MENAHEM KAHANA / REUTERS)
Steps are being taken to force primary elections for the Bayit Yehudi leadership due to anger among significant portions of the party membership and central committee toward current leader Education Minister Rafi Peretz.
A meeting has been called by Bayit Yehudi MK Moti Yogev and former MK and deputy defense minister Eli Ben-Dahan for party members to discuss ways to “renew and rehabilitate” Bayit Yehudi.
Beyond that, efforts are being made to gather the signatures of 25% of the Bayit Yehudi central committee, numbering about 1,000 members, needed to convene a central committee emergency meeting.
The purpose of calling such a meeting is to vote on a motion to hold leadership elections for the party and replace Peretz.
It is understood that a majority vote of 65% of the central committee is needed to approve leadership elections.
It is unclear, however, when those elections will take place.
Even if they were to take place before the election on March 2, it would almost certainly be impossible to replace Peretz as a candidate for the Knesset on the Yamina slate of right-wing, religious parties.
One party official said that if a vote were to take place, it is possible that an interim chairman of the party could be voted in despite not being able to take up a seat in the Knesset, similar to how Avi Gabbay served as chairman of Labor between 2017 and 2019 without being a MK.
The new chairman could potentially be appointed minister as well.
One central committee member said another option to remove Peretz will be an appeal to the Bayit Yehudi court to have him expelled from the party on the basis that he violated the will of the central committee.
It is thought that such a move would have a low chance of success however.
There are several reasons why large parts of the party membership are so furious with Peretz.
One of the main points of contention is that Peretz has refused to allow primary elections for the party’s electoral list and its leadership following the elections in September.
There has been severe dissatisfaction with his leadership, and many figures in Bayit Yehudi believed that it was necessary to restore the trust of its electorate in the party by holding primaries.
Additionally, Peretz’s decision to install Sarah Beck as a candidate on the Yamina list instead of Yogev, who came first in the primary for Bayit Yehudi’s electoral list in April, caused great anger.
At the central committee meeting on Monday, Peretz said explicitly that he would not seek to install a candidate of his choosing on the Yamina list instead of Yogev, but then did exactly that on Wednesday night when the electoral lists were submitted to the Central Elections Committee.
The fact that Peretz also secured a deal with the far-right Kahanist Otzma Yehudi party before Bayit Yehudi’s natural partner, National Union, also angered party members.
Many saw Peretz’s deal with Otzma as a way to outflank Nation Union leader Bezalel Smotrich’s attempt to gain leadership of a joint Bayit Yehudi-National Union electoral list.
“The agreement with Otzma was a mistake,” said Ben-Dahan. “An agreement should have been done with National Union and only then with Otzma, because at the end of the day National Union is our natural partner, and Otzma is not in the mainstream of the religious-Zionist movement.”
Ben-Dahan acknowledged that “there is no small rift between Rabbi Rafi [Peretz] and party activists,” but said that he himself would not comment on “personal issues” or any discussion about replacing Peretz at this stage.
Associates of Peretz have said they are not concerned at this stage for his position, and believe that the storm of protests against him will subside after the election.


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