Knesset rejects bills for early elections and universal draft

The Knesset on Wednesday voted down Labor Party proposals to dissolve parliament and hold early elections in the wake of the Kadima party’s break with the Likud-led coalition.

Fifty-three MKs voted against two bills calling for the dispersal of the Knesset, while 27 MKs, including 10 from Kadima, voted in favor. Earlier on Wednesday opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) called for early elections. She said the country had witnessed the end of a “political fiasco,” referring to the two-month-long Likud-Kadima partnership.

“We’re at the end of an extremely repulsive political circus,” Yachimovich said at a press conference in which she slammed the steps taken by the Kadima party in recent months. Whereas other circuses usually have entertainment value, she said, “this circus only had contempt and moral turpitude.”

The Knesset also rejected by 74 votes to 20 a Yisrael Beytenu motion to mandate the enlistment of all citizens — including ultra-Orthodox and Arab Israelis — at age 18. Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman responded to the vote, saying, “What the law didn’t do reality will accomplish. On August 1 the target we want to focus on will change.”

Yisrael Beytenu’s bill proposed immediate personal sanctions for draft dodgers, although it would have also rewarded those who serve with grants for higher education. In addition, draft exemptions would have been awarded to 1,000 exceptional Torah scholars each year — the same as the number of exceptional athletes and artists who currently receive such exemptions.

On Tuesday, Liberman said that he would not issue an ultimatum to the prime minister regarding the particulars of new draft legislation, and expressed confidence that the remaining coalition would last for several more months, at least.