(JNi.media) Amit Segal, a senior Israeli political journalist who is close to the National-Religious sector (where he grew up) reported Sunday that the Bayit Yehudi party is falling apart. Reviewing the past week in the embattled Knesset faction, Segal writes: Tekuma MK Bezalel Smotrich is struggling in the Finance Committee against tax benefits map (designating which Israeli towns receive the breaks); one day later, Party Chairman and Education Minister Bennett expresses support the same map. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked proposes not to ascend the Temple Mount at this time; so the Tekuma group (National-Haredi Settlers) calls on Jews to go up there and pray. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Uri Ariel sprinkles hints of an early retirement; Bennett slides down a back slope.
Having lost as many as 6 seats to the Likud, Bayit Yehudi ended up with only 8 seats in the 20th Knesset. But those seats were divided with a big advantage to the NRP partner in the faction: Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, Nissan Slomiansky, Yinon Magal, Moti Yogev, and Shuli Mualem-Refaeli. The other member in the partnership, National Union-Tekuma, are Uri Ariel and Bezalel Smotrich, and that’s it.
Beyond the differences of opinion on principles, Segal believes the problem resides with the party’s political horizon. Uri Ariel’s more right-wing Tekuma finds itself this winter at the peak of weakness and the height of strength. It’s at its weakest, because with only two Knesset seats, and having failed to deliver the goods to its followers, it would find it difficult to retain its Bayit Yehudi cushy slots come the next elections. But it’s at the height of its strength as well, because with these two votes it can break up the coalition, if it wished.
Segal cites opposition members (possibly from the MK Avigdor Lieberman camp) who believe that Tekuma will end up being the cause for the collapse of this version of the Netanyahu government. They’ve had to swallow many frogs from PM Netanyahu; depriving them of the Housing Ministry, barring Jews from the Temple Mount, and settlement construction freeze, to name three. Netanyahu may try for a while to bridge this ever more yawning gap, but he is a secular leader and Ariel et al are extremely religious. He worries about security first, they believe security is divine. Something will have to give, eventually.