Likud, Shas divided on disengagement (Talks for new coalition)

The ^ | 13 December 2004 | GIL HOFFMAN

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Dec. 13, 2004 20:32 | Updated Dec. 13, 2004 20:35
Likud, Shas divided on disengagement
By GIL HOFFMAN

Coalition talks between Likud and Shas broke down on Monday over Shas's continued opposition to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.

The Likud team asked Shas chairman Eli Yishai to endorse the plan, but Yishai said Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's ruling against disengagement will not change, despite the death of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. He asked for Shas to be given freedom to vote its conscience when the issue of disengagement is raised.

Shas rejected Likud efforts to reach a compromise on the matter and the negotiations ended without setting a time for further talks. Labor officials called upon the Likud not to allow any party into the coalition that does not endorse disengagement.

"Labor will not sit in a government with parties that oppose disengagement," Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz said. "If this government will not be a 'disengagement government,' there is no reason to exist and it is preferable to go to elections."

Likud officials were hoping to begin discussing possible portfolios with Shas but left disappointed. They said they will only know how many and what portfolios can be given to Labor when it becomes completely clear whether Shas is joining the coalition.

By contrast, coalition negotiations with United Torah Judaism on Monday morning were relatively successful. The two sides discussed how many portfolios UTJ should be given and they both deemed the difference between them bridgeable.

UTJ demanded to be treated the same way that the National Religious Party was treated in last year's coalition talks. UTJ faction chairman Ya'acov Litzman noted that UTJ received more votes than the NRP in the last election.

The NRP received three portfolios, including the now former Religious Affairs Ministry, and the chairmanship of the Knesset Welfare Committee. UTJ said it would forego one portfolio to obtain the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee for Litzman.

One possibility is that in addition to the Finance Committee, UTJ will receive a deputy minister inside the Prime Minister's Office in charge of religious affairs for MK Moshe Gafni, and MK Meir Porush will be named deputy housing and construction minister without a minister serving above him.

In what may prove to be a sticking point in talks with UTJ, however, Porush said on Monday that he would be unwilling to join a government that has disengagement as one of its coalition guidelines. Asked whether UTJ would support the disengagement plan, Litzman told the Likud that the party's rabbis would reconvene on the matter.

UTJ MKs raised several budgetary demands, including restoring cuts to child benefits and for haredi kindergartens. When the Likud rejected this demand, UTJ's elder statesman, MK Avraham Ravitz, left the negotiating room in anger.

"I don't remember ever causing such a breakdown in a meeting," Ravitz said. "I never had a reason before."

Nevertheless, Litzman said following the talks that he believes the negotiations are "nearing their end." In response, Shinui leader Yosef Lapid that if the haredim join the coalition, Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's economic plan will also near its end.

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With Labor the government will have a 61 seat majority. I have to wonder how much Prime Minister Sharon really wants the haredim in. I expect yonif's prediction that Shinui rather than the religious parties may end up in the government to give a solid majority for disengagement is probably correct.