UTJ wants Netanyahu to 'take command'

Faction members meet prime minister in bid to find solution for Emmanuel crisis. 'Something is happening in this country and he has to settle it,' MK Porush tells Ynet

Ronen Medzini |Published: 06.23.10 , 16:37

Members of the United Torah Judaism faction met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday afternoon is a bid to find a solution for the Emmanuel crisis, after ultra-Orthodox parents who refused to obey a High Court ruling against discrimination were sent to jail.

Netanyahu told the faction members that "the court's decisions must be honored" and called on them to "practice restraint".

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Knesset Member Meir Porush told Ynet before the meeting, "We will demand that the prime minister take command. Something is happening in this country and he must settle it."

Asked whether his party would leave the coalition, Porush responded, "You write that every time anyway and then remove it."

UTJ members arrive at PM's bureau (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

The High Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that 13 of the 22 mothers from Emmanuel who refused to obey a court ruling in the Beit Yaakov school discrimination affair would not have to report to jail. The other women will be imprisoned after their husbands are released.

On Monday, the five members of the UTJ faction gathered at a tent outside the Maasiyahu Prison, where the fathers of Emmanuel students are jailed.

MK Porush has been using the tent as his bureau for the past few days.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said he was undeterred by the High Court demand to probe statements made by ultra-Orthodox officials against the judges.

"If the court thinks that it will shut us up with this threat, it is wrong. We won't be deterred and we'll say everything. We won't hide it," he said.

Litzman continued to criticize the court, saying "we will tell exactly what we've seen and heard. We won't hide it. Those who were present at both discussions and heard the judge's remarks immediately saw the judge's impatience. He should self-examine himself. A judge must be fair and decent – and that didn't happen. The court realized that it made a mistake, not just by sending them to jail but by abandoning the children as well."

MK Moshe Gafni said, "The (court) included everything in one miserable ruling. Where (Supreme Court Justice) Edmond Levy sits there are 14 more justices, and they are all Ashkenazim. Ninety-three percent of Tel Aviv University's faculty is Ashkenazi. So if we want to examine whether the Sephardim are discriminated against, then we must check all the systems for racism."