The Yesha Council elected a secular leader for the second time in history on Friday.

Danny Dayan will hold the chairmanship of the council of settlements, and has promised to rejuvenate the group, which was dealt a severe blow when Israel evacuated Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip two years ago.

Dayan is the second secular person to head the council, and the first to hold the position without first having served as the head of a local council.

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Dayan has announced that his primary goal in his new role is to renew dialogue within Israeli society, which he said disappeared after the Gaza disengagement.

He showered praise on his predecessor, Bentzi Lieberman, who stepped down after five years as chairman. Dayan compared Lieberman's protest activities against the disengagement with the "Saison", or 'hunting season'. The term refers to a particularly severe period of conflict in the 1940s when the Haganah - the most prominent militia of Jewish settlers in British Mandate Palestine - cooperated with the British to undermine the Irgun, a militant Zionist organization that carried out violent attacks against the ruling British.

Dayan compared Lieberman with Menachem Begin, commander of the Irgun between 1943 and 1948, saying, "Begin's restraint at the time, like Lieberman's two years ago, prevented a civil war."

The new chairman represents a dramatic change in the council's new make-up, as local council heads now make up a minority of its members, while public figures are highly represented. Other new dominant figures in the council include Rabbi Elyiakam Levanon, rabbi of the settlement of Alon Moreh; Sarah Aliash, head of the religious girls' school at the Kedumim settlement and Moshe Leshem, who runs the organization, "Gamla Shall Not Fall Again," which fights to keep an Israeli hold on territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

In his first speech as council chairman, Dayan said that the council had lost its voice after the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

"The Yesha Council in the last two years underwent prolonged post-traumatic stress. It was dumbstruck, and disappeared. This was a big mistake... the duty is upon us to hold an honest, real and continuous dialogue with everyone."

Dayan also expressed his desire to expand the council to include people who had distanced themselves from it, including extreme-right activist Daniella Weiss from Kedumim.

Referring to the current prime minister and his predecessor, Dayan said "'Sharonism' and 'Olmertism' have turned Israeli society from a society of values to a society of business. Everything is measured by profits and losses - profits and losses in money, profits and losses in quality of life and even profits and losses in human lives."

"The nation of Israel is not like this. It has healthy foundations. Ultimately, the Israeli public is thirsty for a moral, Jewish and Zionist alternative, an alternative that speaks the truth. One of our missions is to expose it," Dayan continued.

Dayan is the cousin of journalist Ilana Dayan and the brother of Aryeh Dayan, also a journalist. He is married to Einat, the marketing manager of the Academic College of Judea and Samaria. The couple has a daughter.

A few months ago, Dayan was quoted harshly criticizing the planned make-up for the new Yesha council, which he said was heavily stacked with religious and rabbinical figures. After he publicized his claims, he was added to the steering committee that assembled the new council, and became a major player in selecting the members. On Thursday, he apologized for his prior statements.

Dayan was born in Argentina and has lived in the settlement of Ma'ale Shomron for the past 20 years.