The Labor Party central committee is expected to meet next month to consider leaving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s coalition. But according to the Jerusalem Post – Olmert is taking steps to ensure his government does not collapse. The Prime Minister has apparently held a secret meeting on Sunday with Degel Hatorah MK Avraham Ravitz and made significant progress on a plan to allow Degel MKs Ravitz and Moshe Gafni to join the government without their four Agudat Yisrael colleagues from United Torah Judaism.

The coalition currently numbers 78 MKs, so if Labor’s 19 MKs were to leave it would fall to 59. Ravitz and Gafni’s joining would give Olmert the security of having a majority in the Knesset even without Labor.

Degel’s main request is for the government to pass a bill requiring equal funding for Chareidi education. Olmert expressed support for the legislation in the meeting, which was also attended by his advisers Yisrael Maimon and Ovad Yehezkel.

“I am in favor of granting your requests even if you don’t join the government, because your children as Israeli citizens deserve the same education as any other children,” Olmert told Ravitz during the meeting.

Ravitz said he noticed a sense of urgency on the part of Olmert and his advisers to finish the deal. He said he was negotiating with the approval of Degel’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv.

If Degel Hatorah joins the government without Agudat Yisrael, it would likely result in a split, for the third time, between the two parties that represent the Lithuanian and Chassidic sectors of Ashkenazi Chareidi Judaism. MK Ya’acov Litzman of Agudat Yisrael said he doubted that Degel’s rabbis would risk such an outcome.

“If there is another split, we will never again be able to unite,” he warned. “But I don’t see it happening that we’ll be in the opposition and they’ll be in the government. Degel is just trying to get money from the government, but they won’t succeed.”

Litzman said the relationship between Agudat Yisrael’s principal mentor, the Gerrer Rebbe, and Degel spiritual leaders Elyashiv and Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman had improved recently. He said it would be especially odd if Degel joined without Agudat Yisrael because the latter was interested in joining the government when it was formed but Degel declined.

Ravitz said he was encouraged by Labor leadership candidate Ophir Paz-Pines’s announcement on Tuesday night that he had collected enough signatures to force a meeting of the Labor central committee to consider leaving the government.

(Source: Jerusalem Post)