RAMALLAH, West Bank, 28 January 2008 — An official from the Israeli religious party of Shas said that the party’s higher council of rabbis was scheduled convene late last night to consider leaving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s coalition over the peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
The official said that the council is not expected to authorize leaving the coalition at this stage, but the rabbis will likely decide to empower party mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Shas Chairman Eli Yishai to leave the government when they see fit, without another meeting of the council.
Yishai will brief the rabbis about his meeting with Olmert last week about the meeting between head of Israeli negotiations team Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qorei, and report what he hears from the prime minister’s office following Olmert’s meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Olmert and Abbas met yesterday, in the Israeli premier’s residence in Jerusalem. Livni and Qorei are also attending the meeting.
The four are expected to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip and issues retaining to the Gaza-Egypt border, as well as the core issues. Both sides defined the meeting “a part of the ongoing Annapolis understandings.”
