Labor chairwoman Merav Michaeli announced on Motzei Shabbos that the Tel Aviv light rail will run on Shabbos and claimed that the decision is within her authority as transportation minister and that no government will be able to revoke her decision. “I am happy to announce that starting next year, the light rail in Tel Aviv and the surrounding area will also operate on Shabbat,” Michaeli said in an interview with Channel 12. “This is my decision – and that’s how it’s going to be.” She later claimed that her move is completely unrelated to her current election campaign. “It’s not related to the elections at all,” she said. “It’s in my coalition agreement with Yair Lapid. I wanted to maintain the coalition and therefore I haven’t done it in the last year and a half. Now there is no coalition to maintain.” “There is a civic duty to the Israeli public. No government will reverse any decision regarding public transportation on Shabbat because it hurts the weakest populations,” she claimed. It should be noted that according to recent polls, the Labor party is faltering and may not even garner enough votes to enter the next Knesset. UTJ Uri Maklev responded to Michaeli’s announcement by stating: “It would have been preferable for her to first answer about her failures in the management of her ministry – drivers sitting for many hours in huge traffic jams, dysfunction in public transportation, the damage to the periphery and price increases throughout the country, and the delays in work in all areas of the ministry. Unfortunately, while the ministry is in a state of dysfunction, the Transportation Minister chooses to divert the discussion from the crisis on the roads by attacking Shabbos.” UTJ MK Meir Porush said: “The Transportation Minister of the state of Tel Aviv, who has brought the state of public transportation to a new low, promises that if she remains in her position, she’ll focus on the one thing she’s good at – destruction. History proves that whoever starts up with Shabbos fails. B’ezras Hashem, on the 7th of Cheshvan, Michaeli will also become history.” “Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli isn’t interested in the traffic jams which millions of citizens suffer from each day,” Noam party chairman Avi Maoz said. “Transportation Minister Michaeli is also not interested in the fact that hundreds of thousands of citizens have given up the option of using public transportation during her term. There is one thing that very much interests her – turning the State of Israel into a state of all its citizens. This is the only goal for which she is willing to fight, even at the cost of the suffering of Israeli citizens.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

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