MK Yaakov Katz, leader of the National Union party, opened the Religious Zionist Leaders and CEO's Conference in Jeruslem on Tuesday by reiterating the need for “unity in the ranks.” The two parties must not be allowed to "rest for a second in seeking this goal," he said. The conference is the initiative of the "B'Sheva" newspaper, an Arutz Sheva publication in Hebrew with over 100,000 copies distributed free each week in Israel.
Though the religious-Zionist camp has long had two separate parties, the split in the current Knesset is all the more jarring because it followed months of fruitless efforts to join them. Both the National Religious Party and the National Union agreed to disband in order to form the new “Jewish Home” party in late 2008, and an agreed-upon body of 39 leading religious-Zionists was to select the party leader and Knesset candidates.
However, four decisions made in quick succession by the body led the more hawkish members to believe they were being alienated. First came the decision to do away with primaries for the party leader, preferring to choose the leader itself, and then came the decision to choose heretofore-unknown Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkovitz as leader - despite his previous lack of public support for the Gush Katif cause. He also later said that the party MKs would be free to vote as they wish on Land of Israel matters, and shortly afterwards accepted a prize from a Jewish-Arab co-existence organization – thus fanning the flames of National Union distrust.
Next came the decision to name among the top five Knesset candidates journalist Uri Orbach, famous for criticizing road-blockings during the Disengagement protests and what he felt was the extreme right-wing. The final straw was the decision to choose a “top ten” list that did not, in the National Union’s eyes, fairly mirror the balance of power in the outgoing Knesset, in which the NRP had three MKs and the NU - six.
The former National Union MKs then left the Jewish Home, re-created its party, and asked Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) to lead them.
In his speech at today's convention, Ketzaleh named the increasing number of disciplines and fields in which “the pioneers of religious-Zionism are taking a leading role: Torah, education, army, industry, science and social affairs. We are now the backbone of these areas and of Israeli society.”
“The country is begging for high-level leadership in public matters, that which is known as ‘politics,’ and it will come from Torah, belief in Torah scholars, and strong links to the original culture and history of the Nation of Israel,” he said.
“The Nation of Israel’s cry for help, healthy leadership, and foreign relations based on Jewish strength obligates us to ensure that the political forces loyal to these values join together in one framework. The two parties must not be allowed to rest for a second in seeking this goal, and those who oppose the merger must not be allowed to ruin things for all of us. Each party must be able to preserve its uniqueness, but at the same time we must work and organize ourselves in one list for the upcoming elections. The two parties must be forced to march and work together, and just as it works in education and other spheres, it will succeed in politics as well.”