As the High Holy Days begin, an argument between Shas and Meretz that has become
an annual tradition rears its head yet again: When should daylight-savings time
end? MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) slammed Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Friday,
saying the minister promised to pass a law to extend daylight-saving time by 11
days, but buried it in the Shas-controlled Knesset Interior
Committee.
“It’s a technical change: Extend DST until summer actually
ends,” Horowitz said. “Nothing is simpler than that.”
Meretz has accused
Yishai and Shas of preventing the extension of daylight-saving time so that the
Yom Kippur fast will end earlier in the day. However, regardless of what time
the sun sets, the fast is 25 hours long.
In March, the Interior Ministry
announced that daylight-saving time would end next Sunday morning at 2, before
Yom Kippur, which begins on Tuesday evening, September 25. The ministry
explained that, since the bill was not approved, there would not be enough time
to bring it into effect in 2012.
Last June, a bill extending
daylight-saving time from 182 to 193 days per year passed a preliminary Knesset
vote, but the legislation has yet to progress beyond that point.
Interior
Committee chairman Amnon Cohen (Shas), said the measure was stuck because of
disagreements between the Interior Ministry and MKs who wanted the legislation
to be worded differently.
Yishai’s office said the bill would be
finalized in the Knesset’s winter session, which begins on October
15.
Horowitz, however, blamed the bill’s status on “a bunch of haredi
wheelerdealers who control the Interior Ministry and made up all kinds of
excuses to postpone and delay.”
The Meretz MK added that, because of
Shas, it would be dark at five in the afternoon this winter.
“We wanted
to get rid of darkness, but the real darkness is in the Interior Ministry and
this government,” Horowitz said. “We need to get rid of them, so there will be
light.”