MK Elazar Stern leaves Hatnua over Labor merger

Sources say Stern will not leave politics, rather join another party.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Elazar Stern (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Elazar Stern
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
MK Elazar Stern broke off from MK Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua Saturday, after she and Labor leader Isaac Herzog agreed to run as a joint list with a rotation as prime minister.
A source close to Stern said he received offers to run with other, centrist parties – a thinly-veiled hint at Yesh Atid and Koolanu – and is likely to take one of them rather than leave politics.
In a letter to Livni, Stern recounted his work in the Knesset on issues of religion and state and helping Holocaust survivors, saying it is unfortunate that work was cut short when the Knesset dispersed.
Stern wrote that, although he told Livni that he and MK David Tsur were considering leaving Hatnua when the election was called, they did not do so when they could take campaign funding with them, because they did not want to act in a way that could even be suspected of being unethical.
The MK added that Livni’s recent behavior and public statements show him that his place is no longer in Hatnua.
Livni courted controversy last week after calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “impotent” and “garbage” on a satirical TV program.
“In our meeting on Thursday, I made clear my hesitations about the connection with Labor, both the way and the conditions under which the decision was made. There was to heavy a price just for you to get a rotation,” he wrote, implying that she acted out of concern for herself and not her party as a whole.