There is mounting concern among Israeli leaders that controversies surrounding two top officials may bring down the government and derail the Middle East peace process.
Political observers here are saying the Labor-led government may implode as a result of legal proceedings involving two key officials of the Shas party, a junior partner in the coalition.
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who heads the fervently Orthodox party, faces charges of bribery and misappropriation in connection with his personal financial affairs.
And another Shas member of the Knesset, Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Raphael Pinhasi, has been under investigation on fraud charges — including alleged campaign-finance offenses — in connection with his position as party treasurer.
As with Deri, he has so far avoided a court indictment because he is protected by parliamentary immunity.
Petitions to force both men to step down from their posts are before the High Court of Justice. If it rules against them, Shas may very well quit the coalition.
Such a move would likely topple the government and could also alter the course of the delicate peace negotiations.
Government ministers, watching in mounting anguish from the sidelines, say it would be tragic if the peace process — felt to be nearing its “moment of truth” — were halted in its tracks by all the legalistic procedural wrangling within the Israeli government.
On the other hand, advocates of what is being called the “rule of law” school insist that even progress toward peace must make way for legal and constitutional propriety.
Some pundits are predicting that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin may survive a coalition crisis by reconstituting the same party line-up in a renewed government, with an entirely different allocation of Cabinet portfolios.
A MORE CENTRIST GOVERNMENT?
But there are alternative scenarios being discussed in political circles here — all of which assume that Rabin himself will survive his present bruising battles with top state justice officials.
According to one option, Rabin will bring other religious parties into the coalition in the event of a Shas defection. The most frequently discussed candidate is the United Torah Judaism bloc, or at least its major component: the Agudat Yisrael party.
Rabin recently held a lengthy conversation with Agudah’s leader, Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Alter, fueling speculation that the mainly Hasidic party might be invited to join the coalition.
According to another option, Rabin would form a more centrist coalition, adding the rightwing Tsomet party and National Religious Party to his currently left-of-center Labor government.
A centrist coalition is Rabin’s “dream” government — one that expresses the widest possible spectrum of parties. But given the hawkish tendencies of the Orthodox NRP and the secularist Tsomet, it is likely that the seculardovish Meretz ministers would take their leave of such a coalition.
There is, of course, one additional option for Rabin — to call for new elections.
According to most pundits, a new centrist coalition or early elections would cause the peace process to suffer a severe setback, at the very least. At worst, these two options would leave the talks in a state of complete paralysis.
A breakdown of this sort could not come at a worse time — as Rabin himself observed pointedly Tuesday. During an address to his Labor Knesset faction, he noted that “new avenues” had just opened up both with the Syrians and with the Palestinians.
Standing in stark opposition to those concerned about a breakdown in the peace negotiations are the “rule of law” advocates, whose champion is Attorney General Yosef Harish.
The question of the day among pundits here is whether Harish is a high-minded defender of the law, whatever the costs, or whether he is simply a maverick, eager to make political hay out of Rabin’s partisan attempts to keep his coalition together.
RELUCTANT TO FIRE HARISH
Rabin has been engaged in a serious standoff against the entire top echelon at the Justice Ministry in the cases against Deri and Pinhasi.
The High Court of Justice was scheduled this week to review petitions asking that Deri be forced to take leave from his post at the Interior Ministry until he is cleared of the charges of bribery and misappropriation that have been leveled against him.
The Knesset is to debate in late September Harish’s request to remove Deri’s parliamentary immunity so he can be tried on those charges.
Deri refuses to step down until the charges are filed in court, citing a letter to that effect that he sent to Rabin last year when the coalition was formed — and which was endorsed at the time by Harish.
Now, however, Harish has changed his position and insists that Deri step down at once — even before the Knesset rules on his immunity.
Rabin has taken issue with Harish’s stance, despite the long-held tradition that prime ministers accept unquestioningly the advice of their attorneys general on legal issues.
Shas leaders warn that the forced departure of Deri — or Pinhasi, who has also found protection from court action by virtue of his parliamentary immunity — would lead almost inevitably to Shas’ secession from the coalition.
The issues in the Deri and Pinhasi cases could thus develop into a protracted political-legal crisis.
Rabin has stopped short of actually firing Harish or Justice Minister David Libai, who agrees with Harish that the two Shas figures should step down from office until their names are cleared in court.
Rabin has apparently reached the conclusion that firing either Harish or Libai is a drastic step that could trigger a wave of public criticism that could lead to his own downfall.
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