EHUD BARAK AND ELI YISHAI OF SHAS DURING KENSSET DEBATE ON GOLAN HEIGHTS REFERENDUM VOTE,...

Prime Minister Ehud Barak, seated in his Knesset (Parliament) chair, guestures to an unidentified parliamentarian as the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Eli Yishai, listens to the heated debate in the plenum March 1 on a bill that has been called a potential kiss of death to a Golan Heights deal. The opposition-sponsored bill on the proposed nature of a referendum Barak has pledged to hold on a future peace deal with Syria passed by a vote of 60-53 with one abstention. The bill will require two more readings to become law but the loss was a sharp blow to the government's prestige and the stability of the coalition Barak has formed. Yishai is Minister of Labour and Welfare and a number of Shas party parliamentarians bolted from the coalition to support the bill. JWH