The Moetzes Gedolei Yisrael of Agudas Yisrael will convene today in Yerushalayim, Wednesday, 27 Adar at 17:00, to begin discussing who to recommend to President Reuven Rivlin for the presidential mandate to form a coalition government.
One might think the decision is an open and shut case, but the admorim will listen to the faction members of Agudas Yisrael as they make their recommendations regarding the makeup of the future coalition government as well as what demands will be made of the prime minister prior to agreeing to enter a coalition.
Agudas Yisrael officials report the decision of the Torah Council will not be announced today.
(The number of seats may fluctuate. The Central Election Committee states the final numbers will be released Thursday morning, 28 Adar).
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
1. They have to find a way to prevent conscription of yeshiva students. At least one nationalist party demands they be drafted, and all of them supported it last kenesset.
2. If Netanyahu won’t agree to that, they’ll have to find a way to get some other coalition that will. This might be tricky.
Yesh Atid’s former partnership with Naftali Bennett on haredi enlistment and integration collapsed over a number of other issues, but Yesh Atid party spokesman Yair Zidan says that even though that wasn’t the subject of the split that Jewish Home might be willing to let some of those achievements go for the sake of building a haredi-inclusive coalition greatly worries his party.
“We’re definitely worried that there’s going to be a fire sale of all the achievements we made in the last government on matters of religion and state, haredi integration and haredi education. We think it would be terrible for the haredi community and the State of Israel as a whole if those provisions on the core curriculum like teaching mathematics in haredi schools were rolled back.”
Assuming that the party found itself in the opposition, Zidan said, “We will do our best to reach across the aisle and continue working with whomever we can to advance the issues most important to us.”
When asked if he felt Yesh Atid was disappointed in its showing, he emphasizes that “Yesh Atid set out to run a positive campaign from the get-go and we did that. We ran a positive campaign and I think a good campaign that we can all be proud of.”
Why are they again convening? Where is all this convening taking them?