MK Uri Ariel will not leave The Jewish Home and will run in the third slot on its Knesset list, according to the News1 website.
The Tekuma party's rabbis did not reach a decision on the matter and Ariel's understandings with The Jewish Home will therefore stand, the report said. Ariel is a member of the Tekuma party, which is a part of the National Union. The National Union received less representation than the National Religious Party on The Jewish Home list, causing anger in its ranks.
Ariel is a popular figure among the religious-nationalist electorate and his presence in the list is estimated to be 'worth' about three Knesset seats.
Eliyahu: we're leaving
However, the Chief Rabbi of Tzfat (Safed), Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Wednesday said that no compromise has been offered that would prevent Tekuma from leaving the Jewish Home. He called upon the head of The Jewish Home party, Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz, to "take the reins" of the party from the hands of Yaakov Amidror, who heads the public committee which appointed the party's Knesset list.
Rabbi Eliyahu said that "no serious offer" has been made in the contacts between the Jewish Home and Tekuma, and that MK Uri Ariel left last night's meeting with Amidror with the feeling that he has no intention of reshuffling the party's Knesset roster.
Rabbi Eliyahu claimed that the polls which have been showing the Jewish Home sinking from nine projected Knesset seats to five or six prove that the public "does not really see the Jewish Home as its home."
Rabbi Eliyahu also said that he has spoken with Prof. Hershkowitz several times and warned him that a Jewish Home defeat "would be registered on his name" and urged him to take over from Amidror "who broke things instead of fixing them." He asked him to be courageous enough to make decisions independently of Amidror.