Friday and Sunday are the busiest days for Israel Railways as soldiers are making their way home for Shabbos and then to their bases on Sunday. On the heels of the dispute between Israel Railways and its insistence on performing upgrades and maintenance on Shabbos, the railway has launched a strike that will result in major transportation snarls today, Sunday morning 2 Rosh Chodesh Elul.

The line running from northern communities to the center of the country (Haifa-Tel Aviv line) is not operating and police have announced traffic units will be out in larger numbers in an effort to keep traffic flowing. The railway was informed it may not continue its chilul Shabbos as it has done in recent weeks. As far as the railway is concerned, the work being conducted is pikuach nefesh, which the religious parties told PM Netanyahu is absurd. They explained that performing maintenance and upgrades on weekdays would indeed be costlier and even more difficult for commuters but none of this constitutes pikuach nefesh.

Much has been written in recent days regarding the chilul Shabbos by Israel Railways and the objections by the chareidi parties in Knesset. At the height of tensions, Minister Yaakov Litzman and Aryeh Deri together with Moshe Gafne met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who promised he remains committed to the religious status quo. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz stated he has always been and remains committed to protecting the status quo.

With the status quo in place for the time being the only thing left to do is blame the chareidim for sabotaging things and today, many tens of thousands of commuters including soldiers have to find a way to work and their respective military bases.

The ongoing dispute has led to a near coalition crisis which resulted in unprecedented strife between the Prime Minister and Transportation Minister Katz, as Mr. Netanyahu almost fired him on Shabbos.

During their meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, the chareidim explained the coalition is compelled to maintain the religious status quo as per coalition agreements. Realizing the magnitude of the dispute with the chareidim, the Prime Minister turned to his Transportation Minister, whom he blames for acting against his wishes and the policies of the coalition. He also blames Katz for creating an “unnecessary coalition crisis”.

The Prime Minister’s Bureau released the following statement: This is an initiated and unnecessary crisis on the part of Minister Yisrael Katz designed to undermine relations between the Prime Minister and the chareidi public or alternatively to damage the image of the Prime Minister among the general public. From the outset there was no need to initiate work on Shabbat. It would have been possible to carry out the work on other dates that would not have harmed the chareidi public, passengers or soldiers. For example, it would have been possible to combine the work with the eight-day shutdown of the railroad – which has the approval of the Transportation Ministry – in the coming weeks. Israel Katz is holding passengers and soldiers as hostages in an unnecessary and artificial crisis that he initiated after having failed in his attempt to take over the Likud institutions. The Prime Minister is outraged over Minister Katz’s cynical attack on passengers and soldiers and is doing his utmost to minimize the damage to these publics in the next 24 hours. To this end, the Prime Minister and Defense Minister have agreed to place buses at the disposal of soldiers over the next 24 hours. The Prime Minister has also instructed the Transportation Ministry to boost public transportation between Tel Aviv and Haifa with additional buses.

In the interim, Egged has increased bus service between Tel Aviv and Haifa and the Defense Ministry has charted buses to assist soldiers making their way back to their bases.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)