In another attempt to try to bring haredi political parties into his coalition government and force out centrist parties, Israel’s right of center Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told coalition members today that he will not allow conversion reform to go forward.
Above: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Kills Conversion Reform To Appease Haredim
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
In another attempt to try to bring haredi political parties into his coalition government and force out centrist parties, Israel’s right of center Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told coalition members today that he will not allow conversion reform to go forward.
Why?
Because, Ha’aretz reported, those same haredi political parties, along with the country’s haredi chief rabbis and many major right-wing Zionist rabbis, object to it.
Conversion reform was the signature initiative of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the small centrist Hatnuah party.
Conversion reform would have allowed state-employed Orthodox rabbis of cities, town and regions to set up their own conversion courts. The reform would also have given potential converts the freedom to choose any of these local rabbis – or the existing centralized conversion court controlled by Israel’s haredi chief rabbis – for their conversion.
Conversion reform would have been implemented through a cabinet decision, not through legislation – even though Livni’s Hatnuah Party wanted a Knesset vote.
Netanyahu blocked that vote repeatedly and then decided conversion reform would be put in place through a cabinet decision. Netanyahu then repeatedly delayed the cabinet vote on the reform and today, he killed it entirely – even though the bill was written in conjunction with the Religious Services Ministry and had passed its first Knesset reading months ago.
Hatnuah reportedly made it clear that it had no plans to leave the coalition over Netanyahu’s decision.
Instead, it hopes to get the bill passed in Knesset with the support of Netanyhu or his Likud Party.
“If a decision isn’t advanced by the cabinet, we will advance the bill in the Knesset with the help of our liberal partners, those who do not fear the Haredim and who want to allow young people who live here and serve in the military to actualize their intense desire to convert, to marry, and live here with us honorably,” Livni, Hatnuah’s head, reportedly wrote on her Facebook page today.
Hatnuah MK Elazar Stern, who is the key MK behind conversion reform initiative, lashed out at Netanyahu.
“[Netanyahu] has a problem with credibility and he has a problem with making decisions on issues of religion and state, as well as on the Palestinian issue. When the Haredim are in the coalition, they ruin the Jewish identity of the state because they’re in the coalition. When they’re in opposition, the government conducts itself as if one day they’ll be in the coalition. What [Netanyahu] is doing here pains me. Not from a political perspective; to me this is a serious ethical problem. This is a serious dispute over the Jewish and democratic identity of the State of Israel – is it in the hands of the majority of the people, or of the haredim and their representative, the prime minister?,” Stern told Ha’aretz.
Other Hatnuah sources reportedly said that what Netanyahu really wants is to strengthen and maintain his bond with haredim while allowing conversion reform to become law through the back door.
Netanyahu’s and his Likud Party’s only natural Knesset partners are haredi political parties.
The vast majority of Jewish Israelis oppose haredi control over marriage, divorce, burial, circumcision and conversion and want strong separation of synagogue and state – something Israel’s haredi minority strongly opposes.
Netanyahu has repeatedly furthered that haredi control, however, and worked to thwart various attempts to end it, even though he is not himself haredi, Orthodox – or even religious.