Three fiercely controversial bills supported by the religious parties are due for a vote in the Knesset Wednesday with the potential of bringing down the Labor-Likud unity coalition government.
The Labor Party served notice Tuesday that it will leave the coalition if one of the measures, giving the Chief Rabbinate exclusive authority to approve conversions performed abroad, is adopted.
But a government crisis may be averted by the absence of Kach Party leader Meir Kahane, whose single vote could turn the tide in favor of the bill. The Knesset plenum has barred Kahane from attending the next five sessions of parliament as a disciplinary measure for insulting Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillel.
The bills are: a private member’s bill calling for pardons for the members of a terrorist underground, all Orthodox Jews, still serving sentences for violent crimes against Arabs in the West Bank; a bill to amend the Law of Return to invalidate conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis; and an amendment to religious regulations dating from the British Mandate in Palestine, which would serve the same purpose.
SHAS BILL
The latter is sponsored by the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, and Premier Yitzhak Shamir has pledged Likud “to do all in its power” to gain its passage. Labor Party leader Shimon Peres said “it endangers the unity of the Jewish people” and Labor will not be part of any government that must enforce it.
Labor and the left-liberal parties have called home all of their members abroad to help defeat it. Likud and the religious camp have done the same to ensure passage. Hadash Communist Party leader Meir Wilner, who is visiting the People’s Republic of China, will not be able to return in time for the vote.
In his absence, Kahane would have the swing vote. But his offensive behavior toward Hillel will keep him from casting it. Hillel stripped Kahane of most of his Knesset privileges last month for refusing to take the required oath of allegiance to the State of Israel. Kahane complied last week after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal for reinstatement. But afterwards he made insulting remarks to the Speaker. Knesset sources said the other bills on the agenda are not certain of passage since a number of Likud MKs might vote with Labor to reject them.
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