Miriam Peretz says son Elyasaf would quit Knesset over coalition with Arab parties

Miriam Peretz, the mother of Elyasaf Peretz, a member of the Knesset (Israel's parliament) for Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar! party, said in a radio interview that her son would give up his seat if the party joined a government with an Arab party. Ynet reported that she described this as a clear condition her son had set for entering a coalition, quoting her as saying: "If his party sits with an Arab party, he leaves."

Peretz, who was previously a candidate for the presidency, made the remarks on the radio station Kol Barama. N12 reported that she also addressed whether her son might defect from the party, saying pressure on the family was continuing and that people were writing to both of them and acting in ways she would not describe. "One day things will be revealed," she said, according to N12.

Who is involved

Elyasaf Peretz sits in the Knesset for Yashar!, the party led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. A Member of the Knesset is usually referred to in Hebrew shorthand as an MK. His mother, Miriam Peretz, is a public figure in her own right; Ynet noted her past run for president, a largely ceremonial office in Israel that is filled by a vote of the Knesset.

Kol Barama is a Hebrew-language radio station aimed mainly at a religious audience. According to a post by the journalist Amit Segal, she spoke to the presenters Meshi and Gadlovich.

What exactly she ruled out

The reports agree on the core of her statement but frame its scope slightly differently. Amit Segal wrote that her son would leave if Eisenkot, as party chairman, sat with Ra'am or the Joint List, the two names he cited. Ra'am, also known as the United Arab List, and the Joint List are parties drawing their support mainly from Arab citizens of Israel. N12 and Ynet described the condition more broadly, as a government that includes an Arab party, without naming any.

Ynet's headline also drew a distinction between sitting in a government with an Arab party and relying on one. It framed reliance as "something else", suggesting that, in her account, outside parliamentary support from an Arab party would not necessarily trigger the same response as formal membership of the coalition. The reports do not quote her explaining that difference in detail.

N12 quoted her as rejecting the idea that an Arab party should have a say over whether Israel goes to war, using a Hebrew phrase that roughly means "it will never happen".

Why Arab parties are a sensitive question

In Israeli coalition politics, whether a government may include or depend on Arab parties is a recurring point of dispute, and parties on the right and centre-right have often been asked to state their position. Statements of this kind, made by or on behalf of individual lawmakers, can matter when a prospective coalition depends on a narrow majority, because the departure of a single member can change the arithmetic.

Pressure to defect

Ynet quoted Peretz as saying that efforts to influence her son had been going on in various ways since the first day. In Israeli political usage, defecting refers to a lawmaker leaving their party's list to support another bloc. Neither Ynet nor N12 reported who was applying the pressure, and she declined to give details.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports carries a statement from Elyasaf Peretz himself confirming the condition his mother described, and no response from Eisenkot or the Yashar! party has been reported. The reports also do not identify who she says has been pressing her son to defect, and her claim that things will one day come out was made without supporting detail.