Shas faction meeting
Shas faction meetingFlash90

Hareidi MKs are up in arms over the impending coalition deal between theLikud/Yisrael Beteinu, Yesh Atid and Jewish Home to form a government. Sources in Hareidi parties told reporters Thursday that the deal was the antithesis of the promises Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made to them before the elections, and an unjust reward for their years of loyalty to him.

If Yesh Atid and Jewish Home do join the coalition, as reports Wednesday night and Thursday morning seemed to indicate, Netanyahu, along with Tzippy Livni's Hatnu'a party, can count on 68 MKs in his coalition. Netanyahu is said to be very close to an agreement with Yesh Atid and Jewish Home on a framework for the drafting of Hareidi yeshiva students. Netanyahu has presented this framework to Shas and United Torah Jewry, and was told that they could not accept the conditions presented.

Reports Thursday said that Netanyahu has demanded that the pact between Yesh Atid and Jewish Home, in which both parties coordinate their moves with each other, be broken up as a condition of the parties' entry into the government. Both parties are said to have agreed. At that point, Netanyahu told the Hareidi parties, he will be able to add them to the government.

In the wake of the impending deal, a highly-placed source in the Hareidi political world told Channel 2 that “the Hareidi parties will remain in the opposition and make life miserable for Netanyahu. We are not 'disposable rags' for the Prime Minister to use when he needs us and to throw away afterwards. We were the most loyal parties in the previous government, and now he wants us at best as a fifth wheel. If we aren't good enough to be in the government in the first place, then don't do us any favors.”