Netanyahu holding schools hostage

Kol Hai News is reporting that in the fight over the re-opening of the schools there has been an interesting development.

The plan being put together seems to be to start opening schools in cities that are green and yellow, but not in those that are red or orange. That means most schools around the country won't be opened, but the few cities that are green and yellow are all general secular cities, while all Haredi cities are red and orange. 

This upset the Haredim and they came up with a plan, via Yaakov Asher, that would allow Haredi schools to open for kids and teachers that already had Corona.

Further, the Corona Cabinet was talking about connecting the opening of schools to the level of vaccinations in any given city. Meaning, if the percentage of residents vaccinated in a city is too low (I don't know what the threshold would be), schools would not be allowed to open.

According to the report, PM Netanyahu told the Haredi reps that they should back down because advancing such a plan would play into Gantz's hand and help him find a way to justify not approving the opening at all and it would help him with his electoral campaign.

PM Netanyahu said he would advance the plan but not right now - only later.

I understand the Haredi rabbonim told the schools to close due to pikuach nefesh. That was a smart decision. I am not sure they will find Netanyahu's political tactics to be enough of a reason to keep the schools closed.

And from the other perspective, how dare Netanyahu hold the schools hostage just because it might help Gantz's political campaign! Anyway he probably won't even know how to use it to his advantage. And Gantz is polling barely at the minimum threshold - this isn't going to help him much, if at all.

Netanyahu should not be playing politics, at least not so blatantly, with the Corona guidelines and the opening of the schools. Everyone has suffered too much already. Be decent.

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