Israel Facing Crisis In Shaky Government

With Israel’s budget battle threatening new delays in the peace process, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struggled Friday to come up with a compromise that would keep his shaky coalition government from collapsing.

Netanyahu postponed a vote on Israel’s 1998 budget until Monday after Foreign Minister David Levy - the government’s leading supporter of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking - said he would resign unless spending was increased for the nation’s needy.

“The prime minister genuinely wants to keep David in the government,” Moshe Lyon, director of the prime minister’s office, said on Israel Radio. “We think we can find a solution.”

Netanyahu said he was working with Finance Minister Yaakov Neeman to find ways to resolve the crisis.

Levy’s Gesher faction controls five of the Netanyahu coalition’s 66 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, and his resignation would likely cause other moderates to desert as well. To survive, Netanyahu must keep the support of a majority of lawmakers in Parliament.