Israel Beiteinu, Shas coordinate anti-Annapolis stance

While no formal agreement reached, both have submitted a list of "red lines" to Olmert.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
eli yishai speech298 88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
eli yishai speech298 88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The right-wing parties in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition met Wednesday to discuss their opposition to the upcoming Middle East summit in Annapolis. Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman met with Shas leader Eli Yishai to discuss their ongoing roles in the coalition. Likud (and opposition) leader Binyamin Netanyahu has increasingly called for both parties to leave the coalition, telling them that their "rightful home" was in a "right-wing government." If both Shas, which has 12 Knesset seats, and Israel Beiteinu, which has 11 MKs, were to quit the 78-member coalition, the government would lose its majority and the country might go to early elections. While Yishai and Lieberman did not come to any formal agreement or reach a decision regarding the summit, both have submitted a list of "red lines" to Olmert outlining issues that they did not want raised at the summit. "Lieberman is much closer to leaving the coalition than Shas. We will see his exit first," said one Kadima MK, who added that both parties would likely wait until the end of the conference before announcing their decisions regarding the coalition. Also Wednesday, Lieberman called for the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee to be outlawed, following its objection to national service for Israeli Arabs. In a letter sent to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Lieberman wrote that the committee was "systematically and continually encouraging the destruction of the State of Israel, its character, administration and institutions."