Rabbi Ben Dahan
Rabbi Ben DahanCredit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90

Moshe Feiglin's Zehut threatened to file a libel suit against Deputy Defense Minister Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan on Thursday, claiming that he defamed Zehut.

Rabbi Ben Dahan (Union of Right-Wing Parties) claimed that "one of the most prominent members of Feiglin's party established a movement aimed at banning circumcision in Israel," in an interview with Arutz Sheva last week.

"These are words that have no substance," said Zehut lawyers in a letter sent to Ben Dahan. "No prominent or not-so-prominent member of the party has ever established such an imaginary movement. By publicizing this, you sought to trample the good name of our party and harm it."

The attorneys are demanding that the deputy minister publish an apology, and they're threatening to file a libel suit and demand compensation in the amount of NIS 140,000.

"The Zehut party and its members think that it will make it to the Knesset through threats of libel suits against me. They think that by hiding candidates with problematic and anti-Jewish agendas who are releasing videos against circumcision, religious voters will support them."

"A libel lawsuit is a method of someone who doesn't want anyone to hear the truth about him - shutting up those who tell the truth. We'll meet in court," added Dahan.

Zehut responded with a statement saying, "Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan lied to the public by claiming that there's a prominent candidate in Zehut who established a movement against circumcision in an interview earlier this week. He must apologize for this, and if not, he'll be sued according to law."

"There's room in Zehut for the Jewish people in all its diversity - even those who are not Torah observant and certainly those who come from the other end of the religious map, who wish to be part of a Jewish Israeli movement led by the Torah observant Moshe Feiglin."

"The constitutive common denominator of Zehut enables the creation of a space in which religious, secular and haredi Jews live together, a space in which an Israeli identity connected to its Judaism is created out of freedom and not out of coercion," Zehut concluded