Prime minister Ehud Olmert has promised Shas that building will go on in settlements around Jerusalem, despite US demands that Israel desist from building across the Green Line.
Shas has come under increasing pressure both from right-wing elements and its ultra-Orthodox rival, United Torah Judaism, to leave the coalition over the building freeze and concessions that the government has made to the Palestinian Authority.
Rocketing property prices and lack of building space has put the construction in the Haredi towns of Beitar Illit and Kiryat Sefer, across the Green Line, on the top of the agenda of the ultra-Orthodox parties.
At the same time, Israel has been risking the rising ire of the US administration for what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described in her visit this week to Israel as “endangering the Annapolis process”.