After compromise, Haredi parties back off threat to dissolve Knesset and trigger elections
Opposition goes ahead with doomed vote in bid to strip leverage from Shas and UTJ, who had warned they would support toppling of government unless it backed friendly IDF draft bill
An opposition-backed bill to disperse the Knesset and call early elections failed to advance Thursday after ultra-Orthodox lawmakers backed away from threats to bring down the government due to a deadlock in efforts to legislate exemptions from army service for the young men of their community.
Both the Shas party and the Degel Hatorah faction within the United Torah Judaism alliance reversed their support for the dissolution bill after marathon talks netted an agreement with Likud MK Yuli Edelstein. The agreement calls for a softened version of a bill regulating mandatory enlistment requirements within the ultra-Orthodox community and punishing draft dodgers.
Edelstein, chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, had previously said he would only allow legislation to pass through his committee if it included sanctions against ultra-Orthodox men who flout enlistment orders.
Despite the compromise, two lawmakers from the Agudat Israel faction within UTJ still voted in favor of dissolution. Had the bill passed in its preliminary reading, it still would have needed to make its way through three more votes.
Lawmakers only voted on the bill at around 3 a.m., knocking it down 61-53.
Both Shas and UTJ, which seek to preserve long-standing exemptions from mandatory service enjoyed by the Haredi community, had threatened to back the dissolution bill over the enlistment issue, which would have left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without a majority needed to stay in power. Elections are currently scheduled for October 2026.
After meeting Edelstein earlier in the evening, the ultra-Orthodox parties confirmed after midnight that “understandings have been reached regarding the principles for the law preserving the status of yeshiva students.”
A joint statement from the factions said that “another few days are required to complete the final version” of the legislation, and therefore their rabbinical leaders told lawmakers to hold off on voting to disband the Knesset for another week.
“Therefore, we appeal to the opposition to postpone the bill to dissolve the Knesset submitted on their behalf until next week. If the bill is not postponed, we will vote against the dissolution of the Knesset,” they said.
But opposition leader Yair Lapid proceeded with the dissolution bill anyway in order, he said, to strip Haredi parties of the ability to threaten to disband the Knesset in future talks over the bill.
Under parliamentary rules, because the legislation was defeated, lawmakers will have to wait six months to bring another Knesset dissolution bill to a vote.
Lapid panned the compromise with the Haredi factions, saying the government had “spat in the faces of the IDF fighters and “sold out our troops.”
Agudat Israel also balked at the compromise, stating that there had yet to be “even a written offer with details of the law regulating the status of yeshiva students.”
Following the vote, the ultra-Orthodox Kikar Hashabbat website reported that Agudat Yisrael chief Yitzhak Goldknopf, who also chairs the larger UTJ party, is expected to resign his cabinet position — which would force UTJ lawmaker Moshe Roth out of the Knesset under the so-called Norwegian Law.
In a statement overnight, Edelstein reiterated his previous claim that “only a real, effective bill like this leading to an expansion of the IDF’s conscription base” would come out of his committee, which will soon “begin deliberations on the law and advance it toward the second and third readings.”
“This is historic news and we are on our way to real change in Israeli society and strengthening the State of Israel’s security,” he asserted.
A new deal
At the heart of for-now-concluded crisis was the ultra-Orthodox leadership’s frustration with Edelstein, who has long blocked the passage of a government-backed bill enshrining the broad exclusion from IDF service for Haredim.
An unreleased version of the bill being worked on by Edelstein’s committee was said to contain a raft of harsh sanctions, including the loss of property tax and public transportation discounts, the removal of tax benefits for working women married to draft dodgers, exclusion from the housing lottery, and the cancellation of daycare and academic subsidies.
The bill would have also prevented draft dodgers up to the age of 29 from receiving driver’s licenses or traveling abroad and would have opened them up to the risk of arrest.
However, in order to prevent the dissolution of the Knesset, Edelstein reportedly backed down from many of his demands in the talks with the Haredim.
According to the ultra-Orthodox Behadrei Haredim news site, the new outline stipulates that the enlistment law will be a temporary measure that will last for only six years, or four if it fails to meet its mobilization goals.
While sanctions connected to subsidies for academic study, international travel and drivers’ licenses would be imposed immediately, others relating to daycare and public transit subsidies would be delayed.
Should the government be unable to reach its enlistment targets in two years, additional sanctions would take effect, including excluding draft dodgers from the housing lottery.
Institutional sanctions on yeshivas that fail to provide enough soldiers would also be imposed, including up to 50 percent of a yeshiva’s budget if it provides less than 95% of its annual target and all of its budget if it does not reach 75%.
Under the reported compromise, the status of all yeshiva students would be reset and need to be regulated from scratch.
Choosing evasion
In a statement following the failure of the bill, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman declared that his party “will not allow the issue of recruitment to be turned into a political bargaining chip.”
“Tonight, the Israeli government once again chose evasion instead of Zionism. Once again, it is putting politics above national and security interests, it is abandoning those who serve and enlisting in favor of evaders,” he said. He added that “if that time and effort were devoted to the issues that really matter, we would have already defeated Hamas and brought back the hostages.”
“The Israeli government did not dissolve because Netanyahu promised the Haredim that our children would continue to fight and sacrifice their lives, and their children would not,” agreed The Democrats chairman Yair Golan.
“Only the democratic, Zionist majority, serving the Israelis who love this country, will save Israel from corruption and restore its security,” Golan said.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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