Coalition crisis?
A coalition crisis has been in the news lately, but it is more a product of the media than real. There are two major aspects of the supposed crisis, first, that PM Bibi Netanyahu has mistreated FM Avigdor Lieberman, Head of the Israel Beitanu Party, and second that there is a clash between them over the conversion bill.
Regarding the mistreatment, this came to a head a few weeks ago when it was reported that Industry and Trade Minister "Fuad" Ben Eliezer met with the Turkish FM in order to try to smooth things over, but the meeting was arranged and carried out without the knowledge of Israeli FM Lieberman. Since there have been other slights to Lieberman, he decided to take this occurence seriously and threatened PM Netanyahu that he would get his "cold" revenge. Apparently, one way that he is doing this is by appointing a new UN Ambassador without Netayahu's approval.
Concurrently, the situation of the Conversion Bill came along, and Netanyahu and Lieberman are on opposite sides of this argument. There is a real need for facilitated conversions in Israel and ca. 30,000 people are affected by the outcome, many of them Russians, both Jews and non-Jews, who wish to convert and/or marry. It is deemed unfair that the Orthodox drag out the process, requiring papers that cannot be obtained within strict time limits and requiring the convert to accept strict Orthodox practices, which the majority of Israelis and Jews do not follow. Apparently a compromisse was reached between the three main faith groups Orthodox, Conservative and Reform under the aegis of Jewish Agency Head Natan Sharansky, representing PM Netanyahu. One positive aspect of this bill was that it would give responsibility for conversions to local Rabbis, thus countering the centralization of the current situation and allowing more flexibility.
However, at the last minute the bill was changed by the Chairman of the Knesset Committee, Israel Beitanu MK David Rotem, and would have given total control over conversions carried out in Israel to the Chief Rabbinate and that version was passed by a majority of the Committee. This is unacceptable to the non-Orthodox groups, and they appealed to Sharansky, who met with Netanyahu, who then stated that "such a bill would cause a rift within the world Jewish community" that would result in loss of support for Israel, and so he withdrew Government support for the Bill. So on one side against the current Rotem version you have Natanyahu and Likud, Labor and even Livni's opposition Kadima Party. For the Rotem version, you have an alliance of Lieberman's Israel Beitanu, Shas and the haredi parties. Today Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar was quoted as being in favor of the bill, but then retracted this statement saying that he does not deal in politics. It is not clear how this situation will be resolved, but the American Jewish groups need not be too concerned, such a bill will never pass.
There is another points of contention between Lieberman and Netanyahu, Israel Beitanu opposed the state budget vote recently, because Lieberman claimed that the Ministries of his party were deliberatley underfunded. Today Lieberman held a press conference where he assured everyone that there is no coalition crisis, there is no intention of Israel Beitanu to force the Conversion Bill through and he and Netanyahu, with a meeting scheduled for last night, will work things out. That's politics.
Regarding the mistreatment, this came to a head a few weeks ago when it was reported that Industry and Trade Minister "Fuad" Ben Eliezer met with the Turkish FM in order to try to smooth things over, but the meeting was arranged and carried out without the knowledge of Israeli FM Lieberman. Since there have been other slights to Lieberman, he decided to take this occurence seriously and threatened PM Netanyahu that he would get his "cold" revenge. Apparently, one way that he is doing this is by appointing a new UN Ambassador without Netayahu's approval.
Concurrently, the situation of the Conversion Bill came along, and Netanyahu and Lieberman are on opposite sides of this argument. There is a real need for facilitated conversions in Israel and ca. 30,000 people are affected by the outcome, many of them Russians, both Jews and non-Jews, who wish to convert and/or marry. It is deemed unfair that the Orthodox drag out the process, requiring papers that cannot be obtained within strict time limits and requiring the convert to accept strict Orthodox practices, which the majority of Israelis and Jews do not follow. Apparently a compromisse was reached between the three main faith groups Orthodox, Conservative and Reform under the aegis of Jewish Agency Head Natan Sharansky, representing PM Netanyahu. One positive aspect of this bill was that it would give responsibility for conversions to local Rabbis, thus countering the centralization of the current situation and allowing more flexibility.
However, at the last minute the bill was changed by the Chairman of the Knesset Committee, Israel Beitanu MK David Rotem, and would have given total control over conversions carried out in Israel to the Chief Rabbinate and that version was passed by a majority of the Committee. This is unacceptable to the non-Orthodox groups, and they appealed to Sharansky, who met with Netanyahu, who then stated that "such a bill would cause a rift within the world Jewish community" that would result in loss of support for Israel, and so he withdrew Government support for the Bill. So on one side against the current Rotem version you have Natanyahu and Likud, Labor and even Livni's opposition Kadima Party. For the Rotem version, you have an alliance of Lieberman's Israel Beitanu, Shas and the haredi parties. Today Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar was quoted as being in favor of the bill, but then retracted this statement saying that he does not deal in politics. It is not clear how this situation will be resolved, but the American Jewish groups need not be too concerned, such a bill will never pass.
There is another points of contention between Lieberman and Netanyahu, Israel Beitanu opposed the state budget vote recently, because Lieberman claimed that the Ministries of his party were deliberatley underfunded. Today Lieberman held a press conference where he assured everyone that there is no coalition crisis, there is no intention of Israel Beitanu to force the Conversion Bill through and he and Netanyahu, with a meeting scheduled for last night, will work things out. That's politics.
posted by Jack Cohen at 2:04 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home