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1 Adar I 5765 - February 9, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
MK Gafni: NRP Resigned from the Coalition Due to the Disengagement Plan, Not Collapse of Religious Services

By Eliezer Rauchberger

The Knesset plenum rejected on Monday two no-confidence motions submitted by opposition parties, one on the issue of the failure to pay religious council employees their salaries and the other on the dire state of hospital wards.

The joint NRP-HaIchud HaLeumi no-confidence motion on religious services was supported by 24 MKs from opposition parties while 45 MKs from the coalition parties—the Likud, Labor, Degel HaTorah and Agudas Yisroel—backed the government. The Shas-sponsored no-confidence motion on the collapse of the hospital system was supported by 34 MKs, including Shinui members, while 44 MKs backed the government. Five MKs from Yachad abstained.

Speaking before the plenum session, MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni said that Degel HaTorah had decided to support the government in these no-confidence motions despite abstaining from a no- confidence vote last week and despite the ongoing failure to carry out several clauses of the coalition agreement. "But this does not obligate us for next week," he stressed.

He attacked the no-confidence motion on the issue of religious services submitted by the NRP, the very same party that, due to the agreement it signed with Shinui and its coalition partnership with Shinui, caused the collapse of religious services in Israel. "The NRP went and dismantled the religious services, destroyed the system together with Shinui and did not resign from the government over the issue of religious services," said MK Gafni. "It resigned because of the Disengagement Plan and the pressure applied to it over this issue. The pressure was not because of closed mikvehs, and not because people were not receiving their pay. This is not what they resigned over."

He then proceeded to dismiss the NRP's contentions regarding religious services. "At least a bit of humility is called for. To keep out of sight. But to come to us with gripes? Rabbi Ravitz and I face new bouts of indecision every five minutes. We signed a coalition agreement in order to rectify what you destroyed. The government held a special meeting on the issue, which did not take place once during the NRP's period. And we reassess ourselves constantly to determine whether the government's decisions will solve the problem or not. We take nothing for granted. Even the ministry the NRP had, the Welfare Ministry, is available to us [Note: As a deputy minister the Prime Minister as the minister in charge] and we are not taking it. Rabbi Ravitz could run the Welfare Ministry and he is not taking it because of religious services, because of ideological issues. I have heard much hypocrisy in this building, but such hypocrisy as this—and without even blushing . . . ?"

 

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