To lower the demands of the other partners in the right-wing bloc: today (Monday) the political reporters received a “leak” that Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri shouted at Binyamin Netanyahu against the background of the claim that the Likud is delaying the appointment of the Knesset Speaker and not actually promoting The talks with the partnership.
According to a report by Michael Shemesh in ‘Khan Ha’od’, “Deri called Netanyahu shouting and said: ‘I gave up the treasure that was close to my heart, and later also the Negev and the Galilee to enable a signing with Otzma Yehudit. You go back on your conclusions and for us it is a crisis of confidence. Shas promised a right-wing government and it will support the government, but if you don’t meet your commitments, we will give up all positions and support the government from the outside.”
According to the leak, Netanyahu and Levin replied: It is not up to us, we are waiting for Smotrich.
The report also stated that “according to Shas sources, there is a major crisis of trust between Deri and Netanyahu after the Likud requests at every second opportunity to change the summaries reached between the parties. The rest are angry at the Shas for giving up the Ministry of the Negev and the Galilee, which did not really help to advance the talks and additional demands for a waiver that came in the last day from the Likud.”
Earlier, Deri said at the faction’s meeting: “Unfortunately, not everyone internalized that Shas received only 11 mandates. I want to say: if we hadn’t made concessions in the last two weeks we wouldn’t have reached the summary stage. However, we are not close to signing.
“We were close to finishing a few days ago, but there is a setback in the negotiations. I don’t mean to threaten, but I say that we have to decide how much more we can give up in order to form the government. We also have limits and we need to know where to draw the red line.”
Tonight Smotrich met with Netanyahu, and after he left he said: “There is progress. We are much more optimistic.”
According to a report by Raviv Drucker in News 13, the Likud has committed to the ultra-orthodox parties to pass a ‘state conversion law’ that will overturn the Supreme Court’s decision from about two years ago to recognize Reform and Conservative conversions in Israel.
The law will not operate retroactively and reformist and conservative conversions made abroad will continue to be recognized in Israel.
This is a bill by two members of the Shas Knesset and it is expected to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on the recognition of reformist conversions by the state.