Netanyahu convenes meeting with ultra-religious parties over coalition crisis

On returning from the US Friday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called a meeting for Saturday night with his ultra-religious coalition partners to hammer out a compromise for saving his government from a snap election. The crisis built up during his absence when the two Hared factions threatened to withhold their support from the State budget unless the United Tora Judaism faction’s amendment to the Draft Law was enacted. Defeat of the budget in the Knesset would topple the Netanyahu-led government some 18 months before the next election is due. A compromise already drafted by two ministers was ruled out by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was surrender to extortion. Some commentators maintain that Netanyahu would be happy to confront the voter in the coming months, since his Likud party is polling much higher than its current 28 Knesset seats, in view of popular indignation over police and media handling of the drawn-out bribery probes against him. The prime minister has said publicly that he has no wish to cut short the term of his incumbent government.