A small victory for the Mayor of Tiberias, Ron Kobi, over the Yisrael Beytenu party: The party registrar, Attorney Eyal Globus, rejected Yisrael Beytenu's petition to prevent the registration of Kobi's new party, the “Secular Right,” in that name.
Yisrael Beytenu did not like Kobi's declaration that he would form a new party in that name that would run in the upcoming national elections.
Yisrael Beytenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman even claimed that Kobi was running as Prime Minister Netanyahu's emissary in order to hurt the Yisrael Beytenu party in retaliation for the failure to establish a government following the last elections.
As a result, Yisrael Beytenu petitioned the party registrar against the registration of the Secular Right party in that name. In the petition, Yisrael Beytenu argued that the new party was a "straw party formed to detract from the votes of Yisrael Beytenu," and that the name of the party, the "Secular Right," would mislead the public, as Yisrael Beytenu had embarked on a publicity campaign using the words “right” and “secular” ahead of the last elections.
The party registrar rejected the petition and ruled that Yisrael Beytenu had no grounds for preventing the registration. "The words 'right' and 'secular' that appear in the advertising campaign of the Yisrael Beytenu party are generic and commonplace," said Globus in his decision.