Clearly, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has strategically placed the blame for Israel Railway’s repeated Chilul Shabbos on the shoulders of Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz. While the two have been very close in the past, growing rumors of Katz hoping to unseat Mr. Netanyahu in the next elections has led to tensions and the handling of this matter is clearly related to those tensions.
What is equally clear is Mr. Netanyahu has announced that the religious status quo will be maintained as he has done in past years and he will not tolerate continued Israel Railways’ Chilul Shabbos connected to improvements and upgrades.
Clearly Katz will have to find a working formula to prevent more chilul Shabbos but he must also woo railway officials to prevent another strike as was seen Sunday, when the railway shut down its Haifa-Tel Aviv line in a strike action. Mr. Netanyahu called on his cabinet ministers “to cooperate rather than create problems”.
For now, PM Netanyahu has masterfully appeased the chareidim, deflecting the blame elsewhere and bringing an end to any crisis that threatens to topple his coalition government.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Problem is far from solved!
Most major rails systems in the world perform maintenance by closing their lines or single tracking past work zones, The latter is not an option for the IR work and the experts have said it is a security issue to put workers at risk while trains are running. Is Netanyahu that beholden to the religious parties in the coalition that he is willing to risk the lives of workers to keep his job??
#2 – No, Mr Netanyahu is not beholden to anyone. Am Yisroel is beholden to Shabbos. It will be more inconvenient and costly to close the streets and the train stations and do the work on another day but it can be done. Certainly the work should not be done in a way that endangers the workers but it should also not be done in a way that endangers the holy Shabbos and the whole of Am Yisroel.
2.
You’re a gadol? A gadol of amay ha’oretz maybe!
You think what they are doing is CH’V a good excuse to be mechalel Shabbos???? ARE YOU KIDDING US????
You won’t agree but if the only way for the medina to have rail service is thru chilul shabbos, THEY SHOULD HAVE NO RAIL SERVICE WHATSOEVER!!!