Interior Minister Eli Yeshai of the Shas party also spoke with Arutz-7 today on his party's post-election plans. He said that he is against a Palestinian state, but that he would not be more extremist on this issue than Sharon. "I am not competing for the voters of National Union," he said - although he noted that in the recent past, he was leading a more 'extremist' line than Sharon.
Yeshai said that he would like to make it clear once and for all: "Shas did not enable the original Oslo Accords to pass in the Knesset. We abstained in the vote, and even without us the pro-Oslo camp had 61 votes, including the 'deserters' of [the right-wing party] Tzomet... Regarding the second Oslo agreements, we voted against."
Two parties announced their withdrawal from the election race today. The Moreshet Avot list of Rabbi Yosef Ba-Gad, who served in the past as a Moledet party Knesset Member, will not run, in deference to a request by National Religious Party leader Effie Eitam. Rabbi Ba-Gad, head of Yeshivat Nachalim, the largest yeshiva high school in Israel, said he would announce his endorsement of the NRP in tomorrow's HaTzofeh newspaper.
Similarly, the last remnant of the Center Party - which won six seats in the 1999 elections, but most of whose members returned to their former parties during the course of the Knesset term - also announced that it was making way for others. MK David Magen, formerly of the Likud, announced his return to the Likud today. The two withdrawals leave 26 parties running for Knesset.
Yeshai said that he would like to make it clear once and for all: "Shas did not enable the original Oslo Accords to pass in the Knesset. We abstained in the vote, and even without us the pro-Oslo camp had 61 votes, including the 'deserters' of [the right-wing party] Tzomet... Regarding the second Oslo agreements, we voted against."
Two parties announced their withdrawal from the election race today. The Moreshet Avot list of Rabbi Yosef Ba-Gad, who served in the past as a Moledet party Knesset Member, will not run, in deference to a request by National Religious Party leader Effie Eitam. Rabbi Ba-Gad, head of Yeshivat Nachalim, the largest yeshiva high school in Israel, said he would announce his endorsement of the NRP in tomorrow's HaTzofeh newspaper.
Similarly, the last remnant of the Center Party - which won six seats in the 1999 elections, but most of whose members returned to their former parties during the course of the Knesset term - also announced that it was making way for others. MK David Magen, formerly of the Likud, announced his return to the Likud today. The two withdrawals leave 26 parties running for Knesset.