The National Union (NU) party is deeply troubled by the announcement Tuesday by MKs Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben Ari that they are splitting from the party and forming their own faction.
"The splitting off by our friends and the establishment of a new party is a day of celebration for the left," the NU said. "The move heralds "the loss of tens of thousands of votes and a return to the days of Oslo."
"We have always worked throughout for a unification of the ranks in the religious and nationalist camp," the party stated, "and we are saddened to see that our friends who oppose the unification with the Jewish Home have not learned any lesson from the history of divisiveness that brought us the 'victims of peace'".
"I am very saddened by this move," MK Uri Ariel (NU) told Arutz Sheva. "We turned to them in writing and asked that we run together and lead the National Union, which will bring many Knesset seats and serve as an anchor for the Netanyahu government."
MK Ariel warned that Eldad and Ben Ari will not pass the minimum threshold for entering the Knesset and will cause great damage to the Right and the Land of Israel.
"The threshold today stands at 70,000 votes, which is more than two MKs," he said. "They are repeating the mistake of Oslo, when many votes went to the garbage bin, including the party of Yitzhak Moda'i."
MK Ariel implored the two to take back their "unworthy" action. "I hope that they will come to their senses and that they will not do it," he said. "They have no chance of passing the threshold. They claim that they have some poll but this has no standing on the ground. It reminds me of the next to last elections, I went to Hevron and met Baruch Marzel. I asked him what's up. He said 'we have reached 4 Knesset seats'. In actual fact, they brought 27,000 votes. They cannot pass the threshold and in their downfall they will make it hard for the right wing bloc to be a strong bloc in the next government."