THE morning of September 4th, a Sunday and the start of the working week in Israel, was a lot worse than the usual automotive nightmare. Maintenance work on the main (and only functioning) railway line between Tel Aviv and the north, which had been scheduled for Saturday, when regular services are suspended for the duration of the Sabbath, had been cancelled due to pressure from the ultra-Orthodox Haredi parties, who were threatening to pull out of the ruling coalition, potentally bringing it down. As a result, the work extended until Sunday evening, creating much greater pressure on the roads than usual.
As drivers advanced at a snail’s pace, officials and politicians traded recriminations. In particular, it set up a fresh clash between Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and one of the more popular members of his cabinet, the transport minister Yisrael Katz. Mr Katz is one of the few Likud ministers with an independent base of support in the party, which makes Mr Netanyahu suspicious of him: he is said to balme Mr Katz for stirring the Haredis up over the issue.
The implications of this latest coalition spat could go further than a morning of traffic jams....Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2cFv8oD
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