Shas’s Council of Torah Sages today instructed the party’s representatives in the cabinet and the Knesset to pull out of the coalition immediately over the government’s refusal to meet the party’s financial demands. Shas wants the government to cover the deficit of its Ma'ayan ultra-orthodox educational network and expand the welfare, health and religious affairs budgets. Prime Minister Ehud Barak asked for a 24-hour reprieve, and was granted it.
Sources at the Knesset estimate that the crisis is a tactic intended to allow Shas to obtain its financial demands, and that the crisis will be resolved by tomorrow evening, when the Knesset is scheduled to vote on the preliminary readings of the Arrangements Law.
Shas chairman Minister Eli Yishai said he had been instructed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to leave the coalition, after the Rabbi consulted the members of the Council of Torah Sages on the telephone and received their approval for the move. Yishai said that any proposed solution for the crisis would require a consultation with the rabbis. Yishai immediately reported Shas’s decision to withdraw from the coalition to Barak, who asked for a reprieve, emphasized Shas’s importance for the coalition, and expressed his hope that things would be worked out.
Yishai said, "Our announcement is clear and unequivocal. We don’t make such announcements off the cuff, and the Prime Minister, too, thinks we mean business."
Yishai said that Shas had asked nothing throughout all previous Knesset terms, but that now Shas felt it was being left out. "They’ve given the kibbutzim billions. How come they don’t have a few dozen millions for our educational network?" Yishai asked.
Coalition chairman MK Ophir Pines is seeking to recruit other Knesset members to support the government in the vote on the Arrangements Law, yet his efforts have run into difficulties. So far he has secured the support of 52 Knesset members from the factions of One Israel, Meretz, Center Party, National Religious Party, and United Torah Judaism. Negotiations with Yisrael Ba'aliya (four MKs) have yet to be concluded. Pines is counting on support by seven Arab Knesset members and six Shinui members, but no conclusive agreement has yet been reached.
Published by Israel's Business Arena December 27, 1999