The character of Israel’s next government may be decided this weekend by the leaders and mentors of an ultra-Orthodox political party scheduled to meet behind closed doors.
Shas, whose spiritual guide is the former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, emerged from the Nov. 1 elections the largest of the four religious parties and the third largest faction in the Knesset.
It must decide whether to align its six Knesset seats with a coalition government headed by Labor or one led by Likud.
A meeting of the Shas Council of Torah Sages has been scheduled for Saturday night, to be chaired by Yosef. The council will hand down the word to the party’s new Knesset faction.
It is scheduled to inform President Chaim Herzog on Sunday whom it recommends he ask to form the next government. The president must choose the leader he thinks most likely to succeed in that task.
Herzog also will be meeting Sunday with the representatives of two other religious parties, Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah, which have seven Knesset seats between them.
They, along with Shas, had asked for postponements, which the president grudgingly granted. But Herzog made it clear this week that Sunday is his deadline. By then he wants to know every party’s preference so he can set in motion the coalition-building process without further delay.
The non-religious parties already have lined up as expected.
The leftist Mapam and Citizens Rights Movement, as well as the Center-Shinui Movement, have declared their preference for a Labor-led government. They urged Herzog to approach Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
The right-wing Tehiya, Tsomet and Moledet parties all have opted for a Likud government headed by Premier Yitzhak Shamir.
But neither Labor nor Likud can form a government with their respective ideological allies alone.
They must have the religious parties, and of the four, Shas is pivotal. According to insiders, it is also deeply divided. Party strongman Arye Deri, director general of the Interior Ministry, is lobbying for an alliance with Labor. He is backed by most of the party’s Knesset faction.
But Rabbi Yosef and some of the Knesset members have come under pressure, some of it crudely expressed in anonymous telephone calls, from rank-and-file voters demanding that the party cast its lot with Likud.
Peres and Labor’s No. 2 man, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, met with Yosef at his home Monday. They sought to persuade him that the peace and security of the state rests in his hands.
They urged him to support Labor’s moderate positions, which include trading territory for peace as part of a final settlement with Israel’s Arab neighbors.
Peres and Rabin also place hope in Degel HaTorah’s mentor, Rabbi Eliezer Schach. He wields powerful influence with Shas as well, and the Laborites hope he will push both parties in their direction, since he holds dovish views on the Palestinian issue.
But Likud, too, is importuning the key spiritual leaders. Herut hard-liner Ariel Sharon met with Yosef last Sunday and telephoned Schach on Monday.
Shamir on Tuesday was reportedly seeking a meeting with Yosef.
Labor holds an arithmetical advantage in the race. It needs only one of the religious parties, Shas or Agudat Yisrael, to put together a narrow-based coalition. Likud needs both.
Labor’s hopes also rest on the assumption that the Hadash Communists would passively support their government, at least by abstaining to vote on crucial issues.
But the Orthodox are unenthusiastic over any kind of political alliance with the Communists, active or passive.
The situation is further complicated by the acute bitterness between Rabbi Schach and the Agudah, particularly its Chabad Hasidic component.
But no outside observers can offer informed opinions yet as to whether the depth of feeling between the Orthodox leaders definitely rules out a coalition government in which both participate.
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