JERUSALEM: Israel’s centre-left Labor party will meet next month to discuss quitting the government, a minister said Sunday, amid a lingering dispute between Israel and the United States over settlements.
"Our parliamentary bloc will meet after Passover to re-examine our participation in the governing coalition," social affairs minister Isaac Herzog told Israeli public radio.
The week-long Passover holiday commemorating the Jews’ biblical exodus from Egypt begins at sunset on Monday.
"We will reconsider our participation in the government in view of its political program… I will recommend joining a Kadima government," Herzog said, referring to the centrist party of former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.
"Israel is confronting an international situation and threats from Iran, and this requires a change in the structure of the governing coalition," he added.
Earlier this month another Labor member, agriculture minister Shalom Simhon, said the party was considering quitting the hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the row with the United States.
Simhon criticized the announcement of plans to build 1,600 new settler homes in east Jerusalem during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden which ignited the dispute, calling it a "grave error."
A decision by Labor to quit the coalition would leave Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority of 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament.
Many Israelis fear that the simmering row over settlements between the two close allies could hinder international efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear drive, which Israel considers its greatest threat.
Israel, the region’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian program, accusations denied by Tehran.
