Shas leader Minister Eli Yishai is busy drumming up support for a broad-based government that agrees on social issues, primarily the party’s monthly child allowance payments, which is of paramount importance to Shas lawmakers as well as the party’s rabbinical council.
Yishai views the current political situation as a timely occurrence, hoping to introduce his social agenda cabinet following the Kadima Party primaries, at which time a new coalition will be established, or alternatively, the nation will move to general elections. He now realizes that his party does not have a chance of persuading the current Olmert-led government of accepting the child allowance payment issue which met with strong opposition in the Finance Ministry.
He hopes to persuade parties to get on to the Shas bandwagon, which demands support for the monthly child allowance as a prerequisite. Parties would also submit their top social issues, which would be incorporated the broad-based coalition.
Yishai has already met with or sent feelers to right-wing and religious parties, including Agudas Yisrael, National Union, NRP and Yisrael Beitenu. He views a coalition bloc of over 30 votes, which would represent a significant political entity in the 120-seat Knesset.
He explains to the potential coalition partners that such a body would determine if a new government would come to power under the leadership of the newly-elected Kadima leader or if the nation goes to the polls to elect a new Knesset.
Yishai remains adamant on the monthly child allowance issue, telling the daily Haaretz his party will not join any new coalition that does not agree to implement the demands for the increased monthly child payment. (Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
8 Responses
Money that they get to give out, with a lot sticking to their hands is all shas cares about, Not he safety of 6 million yidden, keyn yirbu, not the terrible confusion of mihu yehudi, not the lack of any yiddishkeit in the general schools, not the failure to create a system for frum people to earn a living bekvod.
For Shame!
This is a lefe-ordeath ParNossa Issue for large hareidi families living in a Socialist state.
It seems that everyone else gets full Socialist benefits–free education, child care. etc.–from the Government, while Hareidim are grudgingly treated as second-class citizens, entitled to only a fraction of what others get.
When Hareidim apply for jobs, the State usually refuses to hire them.
If you look at the Israeli political system based on socio-economic issues (rather than
foreign affairs and relations with the Arabs), the “left” (as Americans define it) consists of the
religious parties, the Arabs and the socialists, with the “right” (as Americans define it) consisting of the Israeli “center” (Kadmia and Likud, and a few others), with the “center” favoring an economic policy that stresses a fiscal responsibility, supporting the business elite and oppressing the poor. To get a social alliance to be coherent, it requires settling the current dispute with the Arabs, since as long as Israeli is fighting the Arabs, the political spectrum will split on a hawk-dove line, rather than on issues of welfare policy.
As good as this would be I doubt it’s ever going to happen
Dear akuperma (no. 3):
You don’t know your “Left” from your “Right!”
Dear Charlie (no. 6):
The Jewish community almost always supports the powers-that-be, whether they be Socialists, Communists, Capitalists, Monarchists, or Muslims, depending on which country is involved.
This is a survival tactic for our small, oppressed minority.
The Israeli establishment is overwhelmingly keftist, with its origins in the communistic Kibbutz System. The Labor Party, and its junior partners in MERETZ have been, and continue to be the ruling class that dominates the sourt system and the media, and the educational system.
Kadima is a fake clone of the Labor party and some Likud turncoats.
So, don’t blame the victims for trying to survive.
It seems that everyone else gets full Socialist benefits–free education, child care. etc.
HEY deep, chadorim and chinuch atzmi school are free education in Israel today on level with any other govt school. There are some childcare services that begin at age 4 that are free in some areas. Free medical services and bituach leumi for all religious observers also. Most charadim benefit from low arnona taxes in addt.
Raising the child allowance is fiscially insane and will effect other areas in costs rising.
Left vs. Right (answer to #5)
Originally, left and right referred to where a delegate sat in the revolutionary French parliament. Jews weren’t allowed to vote or hold office. In the United States, a “left” winger is a “dove” who supportx welfare programs, and a “right” winger is a “hawk” who feels that the poor should pull themselves up by their bootstraps (reflecting the “Protestant” ethic). In Israel, the secular nationalists (descended from the Revisionists and Herut) are “hawks” who emulate the Protestant ethic. While Orthodox tend to be either fanatical doves of fanatical hawks, almost all Orthodox are pro-welfare (after all, we invented entitlements millenia ago), which results in being aligned on these issues with what Americans perceive as the “left” (socialist doves, most Arabs). Given the perception of most rabbanim that Jewish survival is a function of Torah and Mitzvos rather than military skills or an affluent lifestyle for the elites, this is quite logical.