Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced his first coalition crisis on Friday when a key religious partner threatened to quit unless he restored an edict allowing prosecution of shopkeepers ignoring the Jewish Sabbath.
Sharon's parliamentary majority would be slashed to an unstable margin of two seats if the National Religious Party (NRP) defected and leave in place a ruling coalition without an Orthodox party for the first time in Israel's 55-year history. "This matter is not open to any compromise. We won't be a part of any government that desecrates the Sabbath," Housing Minister Ephraim Eitam, the NRP's leader, told Army radio. He said the Sabbath was a crucial national and Jewish value.
The row flared after Industry and Trade Minister Ehud Olmert halted the work of religious inspectors empowered to issue fines to Jewish shopkeepers who employ Jews on the Sabbath which runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.
Sharon was scheduled to meet Olmert on Sunday to discuss the issue, Israeli media reported.
Israeli governments have generally avoided tinkering with the religious-secular status quo since a pact between rabbis and the government in the state's early days which finetuned the guidelines of observing the Sabbath.
But that changed after the meteoric rise in elections two months ago of the ultra-secular Shinui party which gained 15 seats to become parliament's third biggest grouping.
Shinui, which now runs five government ministries, benefited from a secular backlash against religious Jews perceived to be living more off government subsidies than from work and who have exemptions from military service.
Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky of Shinui said the move to suspend the inspectors had been "coordinated" with his party, but said it was not an attack on the "status quo."
But his spokesman, Benny Rom, said Sabbath inspectors were violating basic rights of Israelis.
"They shouldn't be able to tell us when or where or what to buy...All over the world anyone who wants to make a living especially in these times of recession, can do so seven days a week," Rom said.
But the position of Eitam, a former general, has won powerful support from the Supreme Court. This week it rejected an appeal by a Tel Aviv hardware store owner fined by Sabbath inspectors for staying open on Saturday.
"The day of rest for workers has a welfare and social aim...It is a national value no less than a religious one," ruled Judge Dalia Dorner.