Fiscal Agreement With Shas Party Enables Barak to Keep Coalition

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak kept his ruling coalition intact Tuesday after his government agreed to pay millions of dollars for programs favored by the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party.

The Shas Party, which holds 17 seats in the 120-member parliament, had threatened Monday to bolt Barak’s six-faction coalition if its fiscal demands weren’t met.

The crisis, which erupted just a week before Barak begins a second round of peace talks with Syria, threatened to put the prime minister in the awkward position of negotiating without a solid parliamentary majority to back him up at home.

Under the deal reached Tuesday, Barak’s government agreed to pay off about half the debts incurred by religious schools used by Shas constituents and to increase their future budget allotment.

“We reached an agreement,” Eli Yishai, the powerful Shas member who serves as minister of labor and social affairs, said Tuesday after a series of meetings involving Barak and Education Minister Yossi Sarid. The deal would be put on paper today, Yishai said.

A Shas spokesman said Barak agreed to give $120 million more to Shas-controlled ministries, and Cabinet officials said the government would pay off about half of Shas’ $25-million school system debt.