The crisis threatening the stability of Yitzhak Rabin’s government appears to be easing somewhat, with the prime minister’s two contentious coalition partners adopting a lower profile.
The Sephardic Orthodox party Shas and the left-wing Meretz bloc are stepping back in anticipation of some quiet bargaining early next week.
Shas is under pressure to quit the 3-month old Labor-led government whose education minister, Shulamit Aloni of Meretz, has made controversial statements on religious issues.
But the religious party was rethinking a plan to call out supporters in a mass meeting next week that would step up pressure on its leadership to quit the coalition.
For its part, Meretz let it be known that it is ready and willing to resume the dialogue with the prime minister next week, even though a meeting this week proved fruitless in resolving the crisis.
The crisis is scheduled to come to a head Nov. 2, when the Knesset debates a series of no-confidence motions submitted by opposition religious parties over Aloni’s statements.
Shas wants Aloni shifted from the sensitive education post. But Meretz parliamentary faction Chairman Yossi Sarid insisted in a television interview Wednesday night that his party would not agree to this.
Rabin, meanwhile, dismissed as “rubbish” media speculation that he plans to resign after the Nov. 2 vote, receive a new mandate from the president and set about rebuilding his coalition with the same partners and possibly also – in a move to the right – the United Torah Judaism bloc and/or the right-wing Tsomet party.
Sarid said his party would reject this as a transparent ploy if it entailed a portfolio other than education for Aloni.
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