Israel Matzav

'Fool me once, shame on you...'

Rav Aryeh Leib Shteinman, Shlita (May he live good and long days), the acknowledged leader of the Lithuanian Haredim in Israel, has ordered the Degel HaTorah (Lithuanian) component of the United Torah Judaism party not to agree to any deals with Prime Minister Netanyahu, effectively killing for now any rapprochement between Netanyahu and the Haredi parties. But Netanyahu actually has to be pretty happy about this.... Note the bold language below.

Netanyahu hoped that UTJ and Shas would promise to recommend to President Reuven Rivlin that he form a coalition after the election.

The prime minister was rejected Saturday night by Shas leader Arye Deri and MK Ya’acov Litzman of UTJ’s Agudat Israel party.

Shteinman, 100, put the final nail in the coffin of Netanyahu’s plan in a meeting with Degel Hatorah MKs Moshe Gafni, Uri Maklev and Ya’acov Asher Sunday.

“We will not sign any document with Netanyahu now,” Gafni told Army Radio. “We will meet with Netanyahu after the election, hopefully when we have more strength and [Yesh Atid leader Yair] Lapid has been weakened.”

Litzman said in an interview with Ynet that “If they want us in the coalition, they will have to turn the clock back on anti-haredi [ultra-Orthodox] legislation.”

Degel Hatorah, Agudat Israel and Shas have been coordinating their strategy regarding political maneuvers. They all decided against joining any alternative governments that could be formed by Labor leader Isaac Herzog or Lapid without an election.

“We will not form a government with Yair Lapid or form a coalition with him,” Gafni said. “We will support the prime minister if he initiates elections. We won’t let anyone else form a different coalition.”

Looks like we're going to have another election soon....

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haredim, Israeli elections, Rabbi Aaron Leib Steinman, Yaakov Litzman

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:05 PM