Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who will apparently be entrusted with forming a coalition government, met Thursday morning with National Union leaders Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz and Prof. Aryeh Eldad. A meeting that had been scheduled afterwards with Jewish Home leaders Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz and Zevulun Orlev has been postponed until next week.
The National Union, which won four seats in the elections, held its first faction meeting in Ketzaleh’s hometown of Beit El on Wednesday. It was decided that Katz and MK Eldad, the party’s #3, would do the coalition negotiating with the Likud. The two met with Netanyahu in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Katz said afterwards, "We enjoyed hearing what Netanyahu had to say about the Land of Israel, about the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria, and about education. We were impressed by what he had to say, and we hope that after all these years, a healthy government will finally be established. The atmosphere was friendly and warm, and we hope it will be the same when we sit together in the government."
"Netanyahu repeated that we are the Likud's natural partners," Ketzaleh said.
Ketzaleh met on Wednesday with MK Meir Porush of the UTJ hareidi-religious party, and plans to meet later on Thursday with Shas leader Eli Yishai, as part of his efforts to unite the religious and hareidi blocs. Shas and UTJ have already begun to intimate that they will form a 16-MK hareidi bloc to counter the 15-MK Lieberman party.
MK Saar: Natural Partners First
Likud MK Gideon Saar, who received the most votes in the Likud primaries three months ago (Netanyahu, as party chairman, was not required to run in those elections), said after the meeting, “We will first turn to our natural partners, and then, as we have said many times, try to form as wide of a consensus as possible by inviting other parties to join us as well. But it must be clear: The path of the outgoing government, that of unilateral withdrawals which has brought rockets to the north and south, has failed. That’s why the country voted for a different path, and we will form a government – if, as we hope, President Peres appoints Binyamin Netanyahu to form it – which will be based on different political/security principles.”<?xml:namespace prefix = o />
Pre-Meeting Interview
Asked beforehand on Army Radio to name what his party will demand of Netanyahu in exchange for recommending him to President Shimon Peres as their choice to form the next government, Ketzaleh said, “It is clear that most of the nation agrees with us on the importance of the Land of Israel; not only do we have a 65-mandate majority in the Knesset, even Kadima is partly right-wing, as Avshalom Vilan of [the far-left] Meretz said… We will therefore demand that Netanyahu commit not to form a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel.”
Katz added that they will insist that Netanyahu “not use us as a rag in order to afterwards go to Livni and Kadima, who are in favor of giving away parts of the Land of Israel, and offer to form a national unity government with them.”
The #4
The Army Radio interviewer also grilled Ketzaleh about his party’s #4 candidate: “Isn’t he a Kahanist? Do you not have a problem with that?”
Katz replied, “What’s the problem? Dr. Michael Ben-Ari is a fine young man, a university lecturer…”
Army Radio: “---who believes in Kahane’s philosophy, which was outlawed.”
Katz: “Rabbi Kahane, may G-d avenge his blood, was murdered because he was a Jew, and his son was murdered because he was a Jew, and was someone who loved the People of Israel and the Land of Israel in a way that was more blatant and unrestrained than you do. What is the problem?”
Ben-Ari Appoints Ben-Gvir
Ben-Ari, a father of seven and a resident of Karnei Shomron in northern Samaria, has announced that he will appoint Itamar Ben-Gvir of Hevron as one of his parliamentary aides. Ben-Gvir is a colorful figure who is now completing a law degree and who, in the framework of the nationalist protests, has represented himself and friends in court on many occasions.
“Dr. Ben-Ari is going to be the surprise of the 18th Knesset,” Ben-Gvir says. “He will color the Knesset orange [the unofficial color of the Land of Israel camp -ed.], and it will not be boring. He will be a worthy representative of the struggle against our enemies and on behalf of the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
Jewish Home and Bibi
Netanyahu will meet next week with the negotiating team of the Jewish Home party (former National Religious Party) leader Rabbi Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz and former leader MK Zevulun Orlev.
Asked by Arutz-7 on Wednesday what he would demand of Netanyahu, Hershkovitz said, “I will not conduct these negotiations via the media.”
The Jewish Home received three Knesset seats, but is awaiting the final results after the votes of the soldiers and others are counted. Based on past precedent, when the last-counted votes caused changes in the final tally of Knesset mandates, the party is hoping for an adjustment enabling long-time MK Nissan Slomiansky, the party’s #4, to enter the Knesset. The final election results will be published here.