The Move
Peres drafted a secret agreement with Aryeh Deri and Shas to support the dissolution of the government. The Alignment then issued a motion of no confidence against the government. Shamir subsequently fired Peres, and the other Alignment ministers followed suit. On 15 March, the government was dissolved by a vote of 60 to 55. Agudat Yisrael voted for the motion, while Shas abstained. It was the only time in Israeli history that a government was dissolved by a motion of no confidence.
After the government fell, President Chaim Herzog chose Peres to form the new government. Peres soon found this task difficult. Speaking in a rally at the Yad Eliyahu Arena, Rabbi Elazar Shach, Degel HaTorah's spiritual leader, called on his public not to tolerate a coalition with the secular, Kashrut-violating left, "eaters of hares and swine". This later became known as "The hares address". Following Rabbi Shach's firm objection, Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef also refused to allow its party members to join a Peres government. Peres then had only 60 MKs, one less than necessary. The extra MK would be Avraham Sharir, who had left the Likud in February to form the New Liberal Party.
The new government was to be approved on 11 April. However, on that morning two Agudat Yisrael MKs, Eliezer Mizrahi and Avraham Verdiger, were absent due to the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson)'s ruling not to support any concession of an Israeli territory. It later turned out that Mizrahi was not even present at the signing of the agreement between the Alignment and Agudat Yisrael, while Verdiger had only pretended to sign it, and in fact had just waved his pen over the paper.
Peres asked the President for an extension, but had to surrender his mandate on 26 April. Shamir, who was given the mandate, managed to form a right-wing coalition. Sharir returned to the Likud following Shamir's memorable cry, "Abrasha, come back home!", and Efraim Gur, who left the Alignment, also joined. Shamir presented his new government on 11 June.
Read more about this topic: The Dirty Trick (Israel)
Famous quotes containing the word move:
“The American spring is by no means so agreeable as the American autumn; both move with faltering step, and slow; but this lingering pace, which is delicious in autumn, is most tormenting in the spring.”
—Frances Trollope (1780–1863)
“[Sympathy] is easy to get, and it is not binding. “You have my sympathy”, and inside we say, “and now let us move on to something else.””
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)