While he was participating in sheva brachos for a son of Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush, members of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s faction sent a message to the chairman of the coalition informing him that the faction opposed the introduction of the supermarket law next week in the Knesset plenum and declared: If the proposal comes up in the plenum, they will oppose it.

“I hereby inform you that the Yisrael Beitenu faction opposes the ‘supermarkets bill’ and demands that the bill not be brought to a vote in the Knesset plenum,” said MK Robert Ilatov, chairman of the Yisrael Beitenu faction. If the bill goes up for a vote, the members of the Yisrael Beitenu faction will vote against the bill and Minister Absorption Sofa Landver will leave the plenum at the time of the vote.”

This announcement came after it was agreed that the bill was going to appear on the agenda in the beginning of the week, and after the agreements it appeared that the coalition had reached understandings. However, on Monday, at the start of the faction meeting, Lieberman declared that his party opposed the law, and as stated this afternoon, they reiterated their demand that the law not be advanced.

The law itself does not provide a solution to the High Court of Justice ruling, contrary to what initially thought, that Minister Aryeh Deri would demand that the law be enforced also with the supermarkets in Tel Aviv operating, but that in the meantime it was decided that the law would not apply retroactively, which in its own right is a problem from a legal standpoint some feel, as it lacks equality between Tel Aviv and other cities.

There is also the issue that the chareidim will be demanding a bill that is retroactive, in line with the position of Gedolei Torah Shlita.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)