After a call by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to calm tensions over the closing of mini-markets on Shabbat, both Shas leader Aryeh Deri and Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman seem no closer to kissing and making up.
Speaking at an air force drill, Liberman, who enraged Deri by backing protests against the closures and went to shop at a mini-market on Saturday, says he only wants the status quo to remain.
Aryeh Deri with Avigdor Liberman during a plenum session in the Knesset, July 29, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
“We are not asking to open more stores on Shabbat, just to keep the situation we have had over the last several decades and allow the mini-markets to continue to operate,” the defense minister says, according to a statement from his bureau. “There’s no reason to close stores that have been operating for years.”
Meanwhile Deri says he’s already calm and it’s Liberman who needs to simmer down.
“What haven’t I done to calm things,” he says, according to Channel 10 news. “I even gave an interview where I said there would be no change, and was hit by my own public for it. You need to make the request of the one who isn’t here.”
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