Israel Prize laureate Miriam Peretz said Thursday that her son, Yashar MK Eliasaf Peretz, will leave the Knesset if his party sits in a government with an Arab party.
“If my son’s party sits with an Arab party, he will leave the Knesset,” Peretz said in an interview on Kol Barama radio.
Her remarks come as Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot, who has been tasked with forming the next government, weighs his options for building a coalition. Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman has demanded that Eisenkot give up any reliance on the Arab parties, offering instead to bring the chareidi parties into the coalition.
Eliasaf Peretz has said that Arab parties, including Ra’am, do not meet Yashar’s founding principles, among them a Jewish and democratic state, service for all, and zero tolerance for Hamas, and therefore will not be part of the government.
Miriam Peretz lost two sons in IDF service. Lt. Uriel Peretz was killed in an ambush in southern Lebanon in 1998, and Maj. Eliraz Peretz fell in clashes on the Gaza border in 2010. She received the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement in 2018 and ran for president in 2021.
Eliasaf Peretz, a combat reservist in the Oded Brigade, has completed more than 450 days of reserve duty since the outbreak of the war.
