MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz
MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" KatzFlash 90

National Union chairman MK Yaakov “Ketzaleh” Katz explained on Tuesday evening the reasoning behind his unusual decision to be moved down to seventh place on the party list for the Knesset.

"Four years ago, I was called by Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu ztz”l and our teachers and rabbis, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Chaim Steiner, may they be blessed with good and long lives, on a mission to head the National Union,” Katz wrote on his Facebook page. “The main task assigned to me was to bring unity in the camp, unity of the national religious community.”

"Alongside my struggles to build the fence in the south to stop the infiltrators, putting together a reform in the nursing field and more, most of our work was to fulfill the mission to bring back the unity to the camp,” he added. “I spoke almost obsessively from every platform about the unity until, thank G-d, after almost four years, we were able to get this done: In the next elections, we are running together - the National Union and the Jewish Home.”

"This unity will bring a true expression of our strength and we will be strong and lead in politics just as we lead in the military, in education, in yeshivas and in settlement. This unity will bring our sons back from the Likud and Shas.”

“I have no doubt that the joint faction will achieve between 15 and 20 seats,” stated Katz and noted that "therefore I decided, as I did in the Sayeret and during the Yom Kippur War in which I was wounded, to lie down on the fence and show by example as required by a leader, and asked the party’s central committee to be placed seventh, i.e. 13th or 14th, on the joint list. This way I prove to the public that I am confident that the party will be very large and that my spot in the Knesset will be safe.”

He added, "I also asked the party to ensure that the five candidates in front of me in the National Union are all Sephardim (except for my friend MK Uri Ariel). This way we can be a party that represents the entire national religious community.”