In what was seen as a sign that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants elections, coalition chairman Miki Zohar told the Knesset Finance Committee on Wednesday that he demands four conditions for passing the budget deadline extension bill.The conditions include money for haredi (ultra-Orthodox) yeshivas and religious Zionist causes as well as for the Karev and Hila programs for underprivileged children. He also asked for the government to have “flexibility” on the budget and for the extension to be for 250 days instead of 100. If the deadline extension bill does not pass into law on Wednesday or Monday, another election will be initiated on Monday night at midnight that would take place in November.The head of the Blue and White faction, MK Eitan Ginzburg, expressed outrage over Zohar’s conditions and accused him of seeking elections. “These things cannot be the conditions for not dispersing the Knesset,” he said.Derech Eretz MK Zvi Hauser shouted at the MKs on the committee that going to elections would be crazy and begged them to “get off the roof.”The Finance Committee dispersed without a vote, even though Zohar had told The Jerusalem Post late Tuesday night that Likud MKs on the committee would vote in favor of the bill in the committee and facilitate its passage in every hurdle except its final readings in the plenum.Likud and Blue and White teams will meet later on Wednesday to try to fix the problems. In what was already a bad sign for avoiding elections, Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni (UTJ) had announced that he would ask for allocations of NIS 400 million to yeshivot in his committee on Wednesday, just in case the Knesset disperses and elections are initiated. But his United Torah Judaism colleague Yitzhak Pindrus agreed not to bring the request, and UTJ leader Ya’acov Litzman told the prime minister on Monday that talk of elections is unacceptable.Blue and White leader Benny Gantz warned Netanyahu on Tuesday not to initiate a fourth election in just over a year and a half.“I did not join the government to work for Netanyahu, but to help Israel,” Gantz told reporters at the Defense Ministry. “I won’t get into the tricks and shticks. We made a coalition agreement that formed the government, and the agreement is intended to help Israeli society at this hard time,” he said.”If someone wants to put his own interest ahead of the state and drag Israel to elections, it would be very grave,” Gantz said. “I think that the public won’t forgive him – justifiably. I promise you that it won’t be me” who causes a fourth election.
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