Liberman: Haredi legislation ‘endangers coalition’

Yisrael Beytenu chairman makes his comments as his party stymies efforts to advance bill preventing municipal authorities from allowing shops to open on Shabbat

The coalition crisis over Shabbat appears to be brewing anew, with Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman opposing in no uncertain terms the “Haredi grocery stores bill” which was a critical element in a recent deal to keep the coalition together.

The legislation, designed to block cities from allowing shops to open on Shabbat, was a crucial component of the deal made by United Torah Judaism (UTJ), Shas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to ensure that the coalition did not fall apart over ongoing disputes regarding the Sabbath.

But Liberman said on Monday that his party will vote against the bill in committee and in the Knesset plenum, should the legislation be scheduled for a vote, “today or in the future.”

The coalition would be extremely hard pressed to pass the legislation without Yisrael Beytenu’s five votes, since it would be left with a bare majority of 61MKs, and other members of the coalition are also likely to oppose it.

“There is no need to open grocery stores in Bnei Brak, and similarly there is no need to close them in Rosh Pina,” said Liberman at his party’s faction meeting, describing the Haredi-sponsored legislation as “a gross violation” of Yisrael Beytenu’s coalition agreement with the Likud on religion-and-state issues.

A vote on a first reading of the bill in the Knesset plenum was actually scheduled for Monday evening, but was subsequently withdrawn.

Sources close to UTJ chairman Yaakov Litzman, who resigned as Health Minister last week in protest against ongoing railways maintenance work on Shabbat, said that the bill had been withdrawn because it needed approval from the Knesset House Committee to be expedited, which could not be obtained on Monday because committee chairman MK Yoav Kisch was abroad.

Liberman went on to denounce a series of Haredi-sponsored bills, including legislation giving the Chief Rabbinate a monopoly on conversion, expanding the jurisdiction of the rabbinical courts, limiting railway maintenance, and the decision to nix the Western Wall agreement, saying such steps were “unilateral” and “endanger the coalition.”

He said however that he did not feel it was right “to drag the state into new elections given the sensitive security situation” Israel finds itself in, a reference to tensions on Israel’s northern border with Syria and the increased Iranian presence in that country.

UTJ MK Moshe Gafni tried to shrug off Liberman’s comments, saying that United Torah Judaism would find a way to pass the law.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, he said, however, that “we will be in a different place entirely” if the law is not passed, and that failure to approve the legislation would endanger the coalition.

On Sunday, the “grocery stores bill” – as well as a law to require the Labor and Social Services Minister to “take into consideration Jewish tradition” when deciding whether or not to grant approval for infrastructure maintenance work on Shabbat – were approved by the government for further advancement in Knesset.

The two pieces of legislation come against the background of the severe coalition crisis that blew up over the last few weeks surrounding maintenance work on the Israel Railways network, which angered United Torah Judaism and Shas, and led UTJ chairman Yaakov Litzman to resign as health minister.

The deal, reached between Litzman, Gafni, Shas Chairman Arye Deri and Prime Minister Netanyahu to prevent the crisis from deepening even further, was to pass the grocery stores bill and the infrastructure maintenance bill.

The grocery stores bill was passed in both the Ministerial Committee for Legislation and the full cabinet, to prevent an appeal against it by Yisrael Beytenu, which opposes the legislation.

Yesh Atid Chairman MK Yair Lapid denounced the approval of the grocery stores bill on Sunday as “another insulting law of religious coercion under the cover of Netanyahu’s political deal with the Haredim.”

Said Lapid “They are again creating division instead of a real discussion about the Israeli Sabbath, and we will fight this law with all our strength.”