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National Security Minister Ben Gvir has rejected an offer from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to become a permanent participant in security talks on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, but in return will support a controversial bill widely seen as benefiting the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, his spokesman said.
The minister of national security has requested not just to receive updates but to become a full member of the new war cabinet and take part in decision-making, the spokesman said.
The Likud party responded, saying: “The report is riddled with inaccuracies. Prime Minister Netanyahu simply told Ben Gvir that anyone wanting to join the small security consultative team must certify that they will not leak state secrets or private conversations.”
Ben Gvir responded by accusing the prime minister of being the source of leaks from the former war government, which was dissolved after MP Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party left the coalition government on June 9.
“Anyone who believes that a minister is leaking state secrets should exercise the powers of the Israeli police and [security] Cupboard.”
The proposal to Ben Gvir came as Netanyahu tried late into the night to overcome opposition from his coalition government. The bill, known as the “Rabbi Bill,” would strengthen Israel’s Orthodox parties’ control over the country’s religious establishment by giving the Shas-run Ministry of Religious Affairs the power to appoint hundreds of rabbis to municipal and district rabbis – a power that currently resides in the municipalities themselves, not the ministry.
Criticism of the bill by both the opposition and the coalition has focused on two points: first, the fact that it is politically motivated and designed to give high-paying jobs to political allies, and second, that it takes away from mayors and local leaders the power to appoint rabbis appropriate to the particular circumstances of their cities and regions and gives it to the central government.
Ali Deri furious at Netanyahu for abandoning rabbinical law
Shas party chairman Ali Deri was reportedly furious after Netanyahu announced the bill was being scrapped, and the issue escalated into a crisis on Wednesday as parties in the coalition government hurled accusations at each other.
In a statement on Wednesday, Shas argued that the bill’s sole purpose is to appoint rabbis to cities and districts that currently do not have one. The party argued that the majority of Israel’s Jewish citizens live in municipalities that do not have rabbis, and that this negatively impacts the state’s ability to provide religious services.
“Just as you cannot receive medical services without a doctor, you must understand that you cannot receive religious services without a rabbi. There is no kashrut without a rabbi, and no marriage without a rabbi,” the party said, citing the rabbinic system’s legal authority over marital status, kashrut, burials, conversions and other matters.
Many mayors who participated in the Knesset Constitutional Committee debate on the bill acknowledged that many cities do not have rabbis, but argued that the issue could be resolved with a simple executive order or even an informal request for the government to appoint rabbis. The mayors said that the bill’s tilting the balance of power in the body that selects rabbis from cities to the Shas-dominated Ministry of Religion shows that the bill is not about appointing rabbis, but about appointing rabbis from the Shas sect. The mayors pointed out other problematic provisions in the law, such as not limiting the term of office of rabbis and lowering the required percentage of women on elected bodies.
In a statement, Shas claimed that Justice Minister Yariv Levin and coalition secretary Ofir Katz had pledged their support to the entire coalition. “Unfortunately, the coalition contains Knesset members who are doing whatever they want, undermining Israeli traditions and destabilizing the coalition’s foundations,” the party said.
The Shas party added that it had formed a team including four ministers to “consider how to continue to push forward this important bill with broad agreement from all stakeholders.”
The announcement that the bill would be removed from the Knesset agenda came at around 1 a.m. Wednesday. The decision, which came after the prime minister consulted with Katz, was likely the result of both pressure from Likud mayors who opposed the bill and the fact that two Likud members and one from the Otzma Yehudit party refused to support it, which meant that the bill did not guarantee a majority in the Knesset constitutional committee to move forward.
according to Israel HayomDeri was furious with Netanyahu, accusing him of failing to enforce discipline within his party in a phone call late Tuesday night. Senior coalition officials have been quoted in various reports as saying this is a real political crisis that could destabilize the coalition.
Shas’s source said on Tuesday that Deri was determined to pass the bill because it was important to him and because Likud was signaling to the coalition that it would dissolve if it did not maintain coalition discipline.
The late-night decision to withdraw the bill came following a series of political moves and accusations between Likud, Shas and Otzma Yehudit.
The coalition holds a 9-7 majority in the Knesset Constitutional Committee, where the bill is scheduled to be voted on. But two Likud lawmakers, Tally Gotliv and Moshe Saada, announced earlier this week that they would vote against the bill, eliminating the coalition’s majority. Katz removed Gotliv and Saada from the committee on Tuesday and replaced them with two Likud lawmakers who are expected to vote in favor. But the only member of the Otzma Yehudit party on the committee, Rep. Yitzhak Kreutzer, also said he would vote against the bill, leaving the vote tied 8-8 and the bill rejected.
Otzma Yehudit on Tuesday accused Likud and Shas of trying to make a deal with the two Arab party representatives on the committee, Ofer Kashif of Hadash Tal and Mansour Abbas of Ra’am, to pass the bill by abstaining from the vote. Shas denied the allegations, and the two coalition parties traded public accusations Tuesday evening.
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