The Cabinet reshuffle worked out to end the Labor government’s latest and most serious coalition crisis were formally approved by the Knesset and put into force this week.
On Monday, the Knesset approved the various ministerial changes by a 59-37 vote.
The shuffle was a concession to an ultimatum issued by the fervently Orthodox Shas party that it would quit the coalition unless the outspoken Shulamit Aloni, leader of the secularist Meretz bloc, was removed from her post as minister of education.
After dramatic behind-the-scenes wrangling, the education portfolio remained with the Meretz bloc but was transferred to Amnon Rubinstein, who previously held the energy portfolio.
Aloni has become the science and technology minister, as well as minister of communications.
The transition was not completely smooth, as Aloni protested the 11th-hour appointments of three Shas activists to Postal Authority posts by the outgoing communications minister, Moshe Shahal of the Labor Party.
Meanwhile, Aryeh Deri, the leader of Shas who issued the ultimatum triggering the crisis, has been given back his interior portfolio, which he had temporarily yielded at the demand of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
An effort to block Deri’s reappointment, on the grounds that a police investigation of him for alleged corruption makes Deri unfit to hold the office, was rejected by the High Court of Justice.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
