Why did Shas Minister skip groundbreaking of Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem?
Yishai opted not to attend last week's ceremony in East Jerusalem, despite pressure from rightist MKs.
By Mazal Mualem Tags: George Mitchell Jerusalem Shas Israel newsInterior Minister Eli Yishai opted not to attend last week's cornerstone ceremony for a new Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, despite pressure from rightist MKs. The Shas chairman knows his presence at such an event, at a time when Jerusalem is at boiling point, would be praised by the right but could fan the flames in the city and damage the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of U.S. envoy George Mitchell's visit.
Netanyahu did not need to persuade Yishai; Yishai, as part of the renewed alliance between Likud and Shas, is actively helping to stabilize the government.
Yishai seems to view Netanyahu as a wise, tough captain of the ship of state, recently calling him "one of our most experienced people." Yishai maintains that there is no partner for negotiations on the Palestinian side and, like Netanyahu, favors an "economic peace" with them. Shas officials are happy with Netanyahu's refusal to concede on building in the settlements, seeing it as proof of their influence.
In other matters too, Yishai has reason to be happy with Shas' position, from the restoration of cuts in child allowances to his own very senior cabinet position. The latter was demonstrated by Yishai's inclusion in the forum of senior ministers.
With an indictment is hovering above Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a divided Labor and the Likud rebels ready to spring a surprise at any moment, Shas is Netanyahu's most stable and loyal coalition ally.
In Netanyahu's second term as prime minister Shas is enjoying a second Golden Age, comparable to the era under the party's founder, Aryeh Deri. Yishai's supporters say that unlike Deri, believed to be a political genius but mostly good at making noise, Yishai quietly succeeded in returning Netanyahu to power. This is not far from the truth: Yishai took a gamble just one year ago when he convinced the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, to turn down the offer of partnership with Tzipi Livni. Livni failed to form a government after winning the Kadima primary. That was the epitome of the cooperation between Shas and Netanyahu, which began months earlier.
Netanyahu worked hard to regain the trust of Yosef, who considered him directly responsible for the cuts in child allowances. Now Netanyahu is making great efforts to bolster Yishai's position in the government.
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Your insulting post isn't helpful nor true. So-called "Sephardim" in Israel, are "Mizrahi" Jews, or Jews from "oriental countries". That designation is wrong too, as Morocco or Algeria is geographically more Western than most of Europe. Nobody knows Arabs better than Jews who lived in Arab countries. They have suffered the pogroms in the wake of the establishment of the state of Israel themselves. They had to -or chose to- leave these Arab countries, and constitute a Nakba larger than the Palestinian Arab exodus from British Palestine in 1948, and from formerly Egyptian and Jordanian occupied Palestinian territories in 1967 combined. To suggest an affinity between Shas and Arabs in politics is absurd, and insults intelligence.
according to your logic, the arabs are a racist people. they want to get rid of the jews in israel in the west bank & israel. they succeeded in chasing fews from gaza. not one jew is allowed in gaza. having it your way, jews will not be allowed in israel or the west bank. at leat israel allows arabs to live in its country. the pa want to kill jews ith "their" country.
Not only is it a jewish neighborhood its for religious people only, can you imagine them doing that in Brighton ?
Allan, in many towns the "common wisdom" was to create ease the process of absorption by place immigrants of the same group together. I know that in Upper Nazareth, the mayor at that time objected, to cries of some Russian speakers from "Russia" that Asiatic Russian speakers were an anathema. Worse yet, when Ethiopian immigrants appeared, it was almost as bad as some Ashkenazi Haredeim view Sephardi Haredim each other, and even that is changing. Racism you call it? As long as the Secularist Ashkenazim control the infrastructure, you will have what has become ersatz Zionist culture that promotes the idea that anything European is superior to anything Asian or African.
Any state that builds neighbourhoods specifically intended for one race religion or creed and not any of it's citizens (irrelevant of their background) is a racist state.
Anyone who knows Israel knows that the orthodox sephardic and Arabs get along quite well and perhaps Shas did not want to offend political friends by attending?
Maybe he was to busy visiting Shas MKs in prison to attend the event ?