(Secularist) Shinui reverses objections to coalition with (ultra-Orthodox) Haredim

The Jerusalem Post ^ | Aug. 1, 2004 | Updated Aug. 2, 2004 | GIL HOFMAN AND NINA GILBERT

[anotherview]

Aug. 1, 2004 20:10 | Updated Aug. 2, 2004 17:45
Shinui reverses objections to coalition with Haredim
By GIL HOFMAN AND NINA GILBERT

Avraham Ravitz: "kick them in some sensitive spot"
Photo: Knesset

Lapid: "Sometimes you need to risk being asked 'why did you promise'."
Photo: AP

"There is a moment when you need to give up a bit of your ego and risk being asked 'why did you promise'," Shinui leader Yossef Lapid told reporters Monday after his Shinui faction voted overwhelmingly to consider staying in the government if United Torah Judaism becomes a supporter as long as the Labor Party joins first.

"National interests are more important than petty party politics," he said, "and our interests would have been hurt more if we remained outside and Shas came in and all we have fought for would have been in vain."

But UTJ leader Avraham Ravitz remained unimpressed: "They found a wonderful formula: They used labor as a mantra and said that if they can bear sitting with labor, then they can bear sitting with United Torah Judaism," he replied. "But there are conditions: UTJ mustn't sit in the cabinet, they said. And another one – more satanically sophisticated – so long as they don't sit on the finance committee, where we at present do sit."

"Do they think they're doing me a favor," he said. "I'd kick them in some sensitive spot and throw them to the devil."

About one-fourth of the Shinui faction opposes their party sitting in a government with United Torah Judaism on any condition, and called on their party to quit the coalition if UTJ joins.

MK Hemi Doron, Ilan Leibovitch, and Igal Yassinov came out openly on Monday against Shinui leaders Yosef Lapid and Avraham Poraz for considering a coalition partnership with UTJ under certain conditions.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the faction voted 11-3 in favor of "considering the joining of UTJ as a coalition supporter after the Labor Party joins, on condition that the coalition agreements on religion and state stay intact." The party also wants the government to give a commitment that the "couples union" civil marriage arrangement and a reform in the service of yeshiva students be approved.

The Shinui council is expected to meet in order to decide whether to approve sitting in a coalition with Labor and UTJ.

According to the decision, a coalition agreement will be brought before the Shinui council for approval.

Doron said Shinui must uphold its promise to its voters not to serve in a government with haredim. "That is why we got 15 mandates," he said. Doron said he did not believe the council would approve such a union.

Leibovitch said Shinui could support disengagement from outside the coalition.

Lapid said he "knows that Shinui is inviting criticism" by its decision, but he was concerned that Shinui's accomplishments would be eliminated if it leaves the government and Shas enters instead.

Speaking on Army Radio, Lapid said that if Shinui wants to be a large party it couldn't stick only to one issue and that if Sharon insists on adding a Haredi party than UTJ is the lesser of all evils.

UTJ MK Yisrael Eichler said in response that Lapid is playing a trick and no one in the UTJ party would agree to sit in the coalition while Shinui are in cabinet. "We wont let him make us second class citizens," Eichler said.

Interior Minister Abraham Poraz defended Lapid's decision. The main thing, he said, is that UTJ not have a decissive vote in cabinet. "If Labor is in, we will consider the option of permitting other parties to join, including UTJ," Poraz told Army Radio. "We will tell our voters that a faction of five MKs in a coalition of 80 does not stop us from accomplishing what we want to accomplish. In a wide coalition we can still pursue drafting yeshiva students and other important measures."

Poraz: "We want to enable the Prime Minister to carry out his disengage and take those economic steps needed by the economy. For these, there are more insurmountable hurdles in the Likud than in Shinui," Poraz said.

Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres said Monday he is "glad that Shinui is starting to prefer national issues over other matters." Peres said his party's strategy was to care about principles and not about disqualifying parties in coalition talks. "If other parties are starting to adopt our strategy we welcome them," he said.

Shinui's new stance is seen as an effort to shift the ball back to UTJ, which now must ask the party's rabbis whether it can join a government with Shinui. Poraz said if they decide to remain in opposition he would not be sorry.

"From an ideological point of view there is no way that we [UTJ] will join the current government" unless Shinui changes its anti-Haredi rhetoric, UTJ MK Moshe Gafneh said.

UTJ MK Abraham Ravitz said he knew Shinui would try to find a way to hold on to their seat in the government and added that if Shinui is willing to treat UTJ respectfully he would not rule out sitting in a coalition with them.

"It's no secret that Sharon had a dilemma with wanting us to join while Shinui refused to sit with us," Ravitz told The Jerusalem Post. "Sharon said he decided to bring us into the government and that Lapid could decide to do whatever he wants."

Ravitz said following coalition talks Sunday night that he hopes one more meeting would be enough in order to reach an agreement. The Prime Minister's Office director-general Ilan Cohen and cabinet secretary Yisrael Maimon presented UTJ with plans for the 2005 state budget and expressed willingness to reconsider budget cuts that have harmed haredi interests. Sharon told Ravitz that he wants to reach a deal with them as soon as possible. Once an agreement has been reached, Ravitz said he would seek the approval of his rabbis, Shalom Elyashiv and Aharon Leib Steinman.

After weeks of saying that UTJ would seek its first cabinet minister since 1952, Ravitz said the party would no longer seek a portfolio if Shinui leaves the coalition. He said the party would have needed a voice in the cabinet only if the secularist Shinui remained. He said the party would seek the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee but that the request was not a deal breaker for UTJ.

"The prime minister tried to convince us to agree to sit with UTJ and we explained why we cannot," Lapid told reporters after his meeting with Sharon. "We called upon him to expedite negotiations with Labor to bring them into the government."

Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert pleaded with Lapid in an interview with Israel Radio to remain in the coalition with UTJ in order to advance the unilateral disengagement plan.

The Likud's coalition negotiating team met with Shas Party representatives for two hours on Sunday morning at the Kfar Hamaccabiah Hotel in Ramat Gan on economic issues and matters of religion and state. Shas chairman Eli Yishai said the party's mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has not yet decided whether to endorse the disengagement plan, which the Likud negotiating team has said is a condition for joining the government.

Shas chairman Eli Yishai said, "it is no secret that Tommy Lapid, the white dictator, is acting like a racist." Asked if Sharon is using his party, Yishai said, "in politics there are many games; some are expectable and some are not."

Likud officials were surprised that Shas's economic demands were less than expected. They invited Shas to form a new committee on civil marriage to replace a committee dissolved last week with the National Religious Party, but Yishai turned down the offer.

"We cannot sit in a government that approves civil marriage, even if it is called registering couples," Yishai told reporters after the meeting.

The Likud is set to meet with Labor's negotiating team on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Party chairman Shimon Peres said on Sunday during a visit to Al-Kassami Islamic Academic College in Baka al-Gharbiya that Labor will enter the coalition only if it would lead to a Palestinian state being established on the basis of the 1967 borders with several necessary changes.