Shas Demands Legal Status for Torah Study Before Coalition Talks

Shas MK Uriel Buso said the party will not enter coalition negotiations unless the legal status of Torah scholars is settled in law. He said the commitment must be secured already at the stage of the Knesset steering committee, before ministerial portfolios are divided and before ministers are sworn in.

Speaking Wednesday morning on Kol Chai radio, Buso said, “First we regularize it, only then do we form a government.” He added that every coalition partner will have to sign off on the arrangement at the steering committee stage, saying, “Two weeks, two months, it does not matter. Everything is open until it is settled.” He stressed that this time Shas would not be satisfied with promises.

Buso rejected claims that the party’s partnership with Benjamin Netanyahu was based on personal loyalty. “It was an ideological connection, not blind Bibi-ism,” he said. He acknowledged that the central issue remains unresolved, but argued that the war, legal difficulties and resistance from coalition figures caused the failure to resolve it.

Asked about joining a government led by Benny Gantz, Buso said the camp matters more than the individual. He described a bloc including Yair Lapid, Yair Golan and Avigdor Lieberman, with an agenda that includes public transportation on Shabbat and civil marriage, and warned, “We must not forget who is on the other side.” On road blockages, he said they are not Shas’s method, but blamed the attorney general, saying she normalized behavior that once seemed unthinkable. Referring to the Basic Law on Torah study passed in preliminary reading, he said it is not symbolic, and that once Torah study receives constitutional status, the values will have to be balanced.