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2 Tammuz 5763 - July 2, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Poraz Focus of Attacks
by Eliezer Rauchberger

The Knesset plenum rejected a no-confidence motion submitted last week by Shas due to the conduct of the Interior Minister and his dealings with the Attorney General. Forty-seven MKs from the coalition voted in favor of the government, 16 MKs from the opposition voted against and 17 MKs from the Labor Party abstained.

During the course of the Knesset meeting MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni lodged stinging criticism against Interior Minister Avraham Poraz, saying, "This is an Interior Minister who gets up in the morning and just thinks about how he can do harm--where there are families in crisis who receive a break on municipal taxes and how to take away their tax break. What will this family live off of? How will it pay its municipal taxes? This does not interest him. He only thinks about how to destroy everything we've built here over the course of years."

Rabbi Gafni also attacked Poraz for his double vote. "Minister Poraz is a veteran Knesset member, well- acquainted with the voting procedure. He is not new like MK Gorolovsky. But unlike Gorolovsky, who admitted his act and accepted a punishment, Poraz is hiding his deed. Were it not for the story of Gorolovsky and all of the developments since then, including viewing the videotapes of the vote, we would not even have known at all that Poraz voted twice. He would have succeeded in hiding this.

"Poraz did not err. He did not do this innocently. Anyone who goes to break into a bank and is accused of being a criminal could, by the same token, claim he acted in innocence. I suggest he voices his claim of innocence in court. Why did the Prime Minister suspend MK Blumenthal for less than this, whereas in Poraz' case the Prime Minister is not lifting a finger? I demand Sharon suspend Minister Poraz, or else this entire government is deceptive and fraudulent."

Shas Chairman MK Eli Yishai said, "The Ministry of the Interior is acting in his ministry as if the place were his. Quietly and without anybody knowing, the Minister runs around in a mad frenzy on everything tied to the most delicate and sensitive matters to Am Yisroel. The Interior Minister is simply mad. The Shinui Party is trying to bring about a change in the Jewish identity of the State of Israel. Poraz is imperiling the Jewish people, and sometime in the future an investigative committee will be set up to investigate the ministers who systematically imperiled the Jewish state. Poraz is bringing to an end or to a state of disintegration of the Jewish state by encouraging large-scale aliyah of non- Jews."

Yishai also mentioned how botei knesses and mikvaos are being closed around the country due to the activities of the present government. "This government harms all of the sacred values of the Jewish people and not a man within it is opening his mouth to blow the whistle on them." He went on to attack the Mafdal for continuing to sit on the government despite these grave acts. "Shabbos desecration and opening malls on Shabbos does not interest them. The privatization of El Al, which will lead to Shabbos desecration, does not interest them. The closure of Torah institutions does not interest them. They draw no lines."

Minister Gidon Ezra, who responded in the name of the government, said that because "there is a dispute in the government over various matters related to conversion and citizenship, and since these issues definitely affect each and every one of us, the Prime Minister intends to hold a separate meeting to discuss this issue in order to bridge the very large gaps that exist between the things former Interior Minister Eli Yishai claims and what is being done in the field by Minister Poraz."

Meanwhile, in a meeting of the Knesset's Interior Committee last week, Poraz announced that he plans to work toward allowing those who undergo a Reform or Conservative "conversion" in Israel to receive citizenship, saying he does not intend to "discriminate" against them, and stressing, "I'm not willing to give the Orthodox a monopoly in Israel."

During the committee meeting, Poraz also repeated his previous declaration that non-Jewish soldiers and their parents would receive Israeli citizenship. He said he intends to set up a committee to assess cases where citizenship could be granted to people based on their contribution to Israeli society.

However Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is trying to put a stop to defiant statements by Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) and last week even decided, in contradiction to Poraz' declarations, that converts who undergo an Orthodox conversion would be granted citizenship immediately. Sharon also determined that children of foreign workers staying in Israel illegally would not be able to receive citizenship. "The issue of the Jewish character of the State of Israel is supposed to be determined by government policy, and not according to the policy of one minister alone," said Sharon.

Last week Ministers Ehud Olmert, Zevulun Orlev, Benny Alon and Avraham Poraz met with State Attorney staff members at the Prime Minister's Office. During the meeting Poraz insisted converts who undergo conversion in Israel should not be granted citizenship. The majority of the participants, including the State Attorney staffers, opposed Poraz' proposal and Sharon settled the debate by deciding the current policy would continue unchanged.

 

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