"All of the companies involved in construction have been
notified of the absolute prohibition against working at the
site on Shabbatot and chagim, and they have also been
warned that any divergence from this directive in the future
will bring with it severe steps including suspension from the
list of Defense Ministry contractors," said Deputy Defense
Minister MK Zeev Baum before the Knesset plenum on Monday in
response to a no-confidence motion submitted by Shas on the
issue of Shabbos desecration at the Nitzan construction site,
slated to serve as the new home for some Gush Katif residents
transferred during the disengagement plan. Company workers
have also been notified of the directive, he said.
The no-confidence motion was rejected by the coalition in a
36-19 vote with 13 abstentions. Degel HaTorah and Agudas
Yisroel representatives were absent during the vote.
A second no-confidence motion submitted by the right-wing
parties regarding norms of government conduct under the Prime
Minister was also rejected by a majority of the coalition,
but this no-confidence motion hinged on a single
vote—33 to 32 with 10 abstentions. The ten abstentions
by Meretz and Arab party members spared the government from
further humiliation following last week's three successful no-
confidence motions. In any event, 61 votes are needed to
bring down the government.
MK Yosef Margi (Shas), who sponsored the no-confidence
motion, protested against the Shabbos desecration and the
need to bring in the Prime Minister to halt it. "The primary
and fundamental symbol of the Jewish people—the
Shabbat—is being roughly cast aside," he said. "We have
become worse than the nations of the earth, which are not
commanded to keep the Shabbat and a day of rest. Go out and
take a look. In non-Jewish countries can you buy things on
Sunday? Restore Am Yisrael's soul. Restore values and
morality, restore holiness. This is not a disgrace. Restore
this nation its sanity."
In his response Deputy Minister Baum also said the work at
Nitzan was "only" on Shavuos and that the workers were non-
Jews working for a Jewish contractor. Still he did not try to
diminish from the severity of the incident, acknowledging
"Chilul chag is chilul chag."
Baum said that the Prime Minister intervened personally when
he ordered all work halted on Shabbos, as did Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz. "I believe, following the steps that
have been taken, that there will not be further deviations
and there will not be chilul Shabbos in the
construction work, choliloh. I think that just as
throughout history even in urgent situations the Jewish
people knew how to keep Shabbos and the accompanying mitzvos,
so too in the present situation, although it really does
necessitate an accelerated rate of work."
During the Knesset debate MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni said that at
first Degel HaTorah intended to support the no-confidence
vote, but following the actions taken by the Prime Minister
and Deputy Minister Baum and after discovering that the work
performed on Shavuos was in fact in violation of the
directives issued, the party decided not to vote against the
government.
In a related issue, Rabbi Gafni lodged criticism against the
conduct of MK Reshef Chayne (Shinui) in the area of Kiryat
Shmuel near Haifa on Shabbos Night, where there are attempts
to allow traffic on a street that had been closed for many
years, saying, "Who told you to come on Leil Shabbos and
violently pounce on the person in charge of closing the
street there?" Rabbi Gafni noted Kiryat Shmuel is a religious
neighborhood and the street there should remain closed on
Shabbos as it has for over three decades.
During the course of the debate on the right-wing's no-
confidence motion an uproar broke out when Minister of
Internal Security Gidon Ezra accused right-wing MKs of
negligence, corruption and encouraging illegal acts by
thousands of youths blocking roads in violation of the
law.
