ISRAEL’S SHABBAT WARS
AFTER A weekend in which the Prime Minister’ s aides were briefing the media that he was considering firing Transport Minister Yisrael Katz, Benjamin Net any ah us te pp ed back from the brink and tasked the influential Likud politician with solving his latest coalition crisis instead.
Now Mr Katz will have to find a way to allow major infrastructure work to go ahead on Israel’s railway network, without causing too much chaos for passengers or provoking the ire of the strictly Orthodox leadership over Shabbat work.
It is hard to disentangle the growing tension between Mr Netanyahu and one of the more popular and powerful Likud ministers from the dispute over infrastructure work on Shabbat.
The two political conflicts reached a head on Sunday after the prime minister’s office gave last-minute orders on Friday afternoon that work should not go ahead on the railway network until after sundown on Saturday.
At that point, Israel Rail decided to close down the main Tel Aviv-Haifa line until Sunday evening, causing major traffic jams and increased demand on the bus companies.
The Prime Minister has suspected for several months that Mr Katz, who came first in the Likud Knesset primaries last year and is still smarting at not being promoted to a more senior cabinet position following the election, is planning a move to depose him. The two clashed last month following a decision by the Likud secretariat, chaired by Mr Katz, to take various powers away from the party leader.
The latest crisis with the Charedi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, which were spurred into action by reports on Orthodox websites of work taking place on the rail infrastructure on Shabbat, gave the Prime Minister another opportunity to accuse Mr Katz of misleading him and his coalition partners.
Maintenance work on Shabbat has been routine for years. The aim has been to minimise inconvenience to passengers, and has taken place with Mr Net any ahu’ s authorisation and with the Charedi parties turning a blind eye.
Now that the Orthodox politicians have made it clear they will no longer tolerate the work on Shabbat, it remains unclear how the major infrastructure projects will be carried out without closing down services for prolonged periods.
Mr Netanyahu, who backed down from his threats to fire the Transport Minister, nevertheless lectured him at the Sunday cabinet meeting on how he expects “ministers to solve problems”. Mr Katz, sitting at his right hand, looked on, stony-faced.