The tensions in the new Jewish Home party have not yet totally subsided, following Sunday's decision by the party’s Public Committee to choose a party leader without open primaries. There had even been reports that one of the two leading candidates, Uri Ariel, was considering breaking off from the nascent unified party and heading a new party.
It was said that MKs Aryeh Eldad, who currently plans to run with his new HaTikvah secular nationalist party, Effie Eitam, who currently plans to run with the Likud, and Tzvi Hendel would join Ariel. These MKs represent the more actively pro-Land of Israel camp in the new party.
Sources close to Ariel said that Zevulun Orlev, his main competitor for the party chairmanship, had unfairly managed to convince the 39-member Public Council to choose the party leader without resorting to open primaries – in which, some assume, Orlev would have lost.
Tensions have calmed partially, after it was clarified that the Public Council made its decision by a large majority and that primaries at this late stage were impractical and expensive.
“I am working for unity within the Jewish Home,” Ariel said on Monday evening, “and to this end, I am trying to encourage MKs Eldad, Eitam, Yitzchak Levy and Eli Gabbai to return home.”
The underlying problem faced by the Council is that both of the two leading candidates, Ariel and Orlev, face a hard core of opposition within the potential membership of the new party. Orlev is not totally trusted by the Yesha (Judea and Samaria) camp and its sympathizers to stand undyingly for Land of Israel interests. Ariel, on the other hand, is viewed as too extremist by many supporters of the now-disbanded National Religious Party that Orlev headed.
For this reason, Yigal Bibi – a resident of the Judea town of N’vei Daniel and a former Knesset Member of the NRP – has offered himself as a compromise candidate. “I am accepted by both camps,” he declared, “and if logic wins out, I should be chosen as the party leader.” The four-term MK said that his experience as Deputy Minister in various ministries, and as former Mayor of Tiberias, would enable him to lead the party to success.
Two others have expressed their intention to vie for the post: Tzachi Fenton of Elkanah, who fulfills the popular demand for "new faces" in the party list, and MK Benny Elon.
The Public Council is comprised of 39 rabbis, lawyers, professors and other public figures in the religious-Zionist camp. They have chosen nine of their number as the Search Committee for a party leader. The nine are: Council Chairman Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, Dr. Asher Cohen, Rabbi Eitan Eisemann, former Justice Sarah Frisch, Sarah Elias, Yoel Tzur, Rabbi Eli Sadan, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yehuda Duvdevani, and Rabbi Shmuel Zaafrani.
The party continues to accept nominees for potential Knesset Members to be included on the slate of Knesset candidates for the upcoming elections. For more information, see the party’s Hebrew website at www.111.org.