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Jerusalem - In the past months, Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical organization which parallels the Red Cross, has sent one message after another that it wants to stop cooperating with the two large Hatzala organization -- Hatzala Gush Dan and United Hatzala.

Hatzala says that MDA is motivated by ego and financial issues. Whereas MDA used to be the premier medical emergency treatment body, today it is outflanked by hatzala volunteers who 9 times out of 10 reach the injured and hurt before MDA. When the economy was flourishing, MDA didn't mind and there was plenty of donations for all. Now that the economy has shrunk, and former donors are reevaluating to whom to send their money, MDA decided to push away other contenders.

"MDA cannot live alone on government funding or its bloated fees for transporting the injured in their ambulances," says an source involved in medical issues. "They have to fundraise abroad. When donors see the volunteer organizations always arriving first, the flow of donations drops accordingly."

It seems that MDA has the upper hand. It has a government monopoly of emergency medical services, only its ambulances can sound sirens and bypass traffic laws on their way to an emergency, they are deployed all over the country and they have the largest para-medical training facility in the country. They control the emergency phone number 101 to which people instinctively call in any medical emergency. Their beeper system has no peers besides the Israel Defense Forces.

It is the latter which MDA has just turned into a weapon against the Hatzala organizations: they are threatening to refuse to give them beepers which alert them to emergencies. Without the beepers, Hatzala workers are in the dark and can't do a thing. Never mind that many more people will die.

Instead of sitting back and taking it, Hatzala has mounted an offense at MDA, knowing that it has several powerful cards in their hand. Two of these cards are Deputy Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, whose assistance MDA needs like air to breath, and the other one is MK Moshe Gafni, the chairman of the Financial Committee, who can hold up funds and a recovery plan. MDA suffers from constant deficits despite various recovery plans it promises to keep after getting funds at the expense of the taxpayer.

The two Hatzala groups have already been in touch with the two MKs. They met with Rav Gafni several times, a feat particularly easy to arrange, because his present spokesman was the former spokesman of Ichud Hatzala.

When they met with Litzman in his office, the two Hatzala groups were told he would give backing to them if they would first end their squabbling and come to terms with each other. "I am willing to go with full strength only if I know that you are working together for the joint goal," he warned them. "Remember that this concerns saving lives so you have to do it. Rise above your narrow interests."

The suggestion was made to establish a rabbinic committee that both would adhere to that contained members from different sectors of the community. The senior members of the two organizations -- who in past years have only had contact with each other in courts and batei din -- found themselves peacefully sitting together at one table and speaking in conciliating tones.

Hatzala's aim might not be making peace with MDA. In a recent meeting between United Hatzala and Maalos Hatorah rosh yeshiva Rav Shmuel Auerbach concerning possible ways of resolving the crisis, Rav Auerbach suggested the time had come for the final rend between Hatzala and MDA. He said that United Hatzala should consider founding an alternative organization to MDA.

One possibility that has come up is for Hatzala to join Natali, an organization that competes with MDA in several areas. Natalie recently won an Education Ministry tender to give emergency services to students in school that include vacating them to hospitals or HMOs.

One of the heads of United Hatzala says, "If we put our volunteers at the service of Natali, we can make an organization that will compete with MDA as equals."

Eli Beer, the founder of United Hatzala, said, "We're checking all options right now. I believe that within a few days, after meeting with gedolei Torah and our morei-hora'ah, we'll reach a solution."

Beer emphasizes that every step which his organization takes is coordinated with the rabbonim who guide the organization. "We deal with over 100,000 cases a year. Gedolei yisroel want us to be the leading organization in Israel that saves lives."

In the meantime, the two Hatzala organizations are planning a major meeting in the Heichal Shlomo hall in Petach Tikva, at which will appear leading rabbonim such as Rav Nissim Karelitz and Rav A. L. Steinman. Pressure has already been exerted against participation in the gathering and threats were even made to remove beepers from volunteers that participate.

Will MDA draw the conclusions that now is not a good time to start up with the chareidi community? Time will tell.