Coalition bills removed from agenda as Haredi boycott continues for second week
Ultra-Orthodox parties pressuring Netanyahu to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from military service, threaten to bring down the coalition
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Multiple private members bills sponsored by coalition lawmakers were removed from the Knesset plenum’s agenda on Wednesday as the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties’ partial legislative boycott entered its second week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies have pledged to block the advancement of private member bills sponsored by their coalition partners to protest the government’s failure to advance a controversial bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
Both Shas and UTJ have been pushing for the passage of legislation enshrining military exemptions for yeshiva students and other members of the Haredi community, after the High Court ruled in June last year that the dispensations, in place for decades, were illegal, since they were not based in law.
Among the legislation withdrawn from consideration on Wednesday were bills to dilute the powers of the attorney general and remove the authority of the Supreme Court president to appoint judges to specific cases.
Speaking with the Haredi news site Kikar HaShabbat last week, UTJ lawmaker Yaakov Asher warned that if the Knesset did not pass draft exemption legislation by the end of the summer session, July 27, his party would no longer be able to remain in the government.
“If this law does not pass in this session… we will have a very big problem sitting in such a government, period,” he said, adding that UTJ “cannot be part of a government” that turns Haredim into “criminals.”
Things escalated even further the next day, with the military announcing on Tuesday evening that Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had ordered the IDF Personnel Directorate to immediately provide a plan to “expand and maximize” the number of draft orders sent to young ultra-Orthodox men — further enraging the Haredi community.
Since then, the IDF has launched an enforcement operation to detain people who ignored enlistment orders, prompting Haredi politicians to threaten to “shut down the government” if even one yeshiva student is arrested.
Netanyahu has reportedly assured the Haredim that no such arrests are expected while the Maariv daily reported that similar assurances were provided to the Haredim by security officials.
During Wednesday’s Knesset plenum session, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid criticized the lack of arrests, expressing feigned wonder that “thousands of draft orders have been issued for the ultra-Orthodox and they can’t be found.”
“No one knows where they are. So I want to explain to you where Bnei Brak is,” Lapid declared, giving directions to Israel’s largest ultra-Orthodox city.
Amidst the threats and boycotts, the conscription crisis, and with it the future of the coalition, may be quickly coming to a head.
According to Channel 12, during a meeting with a pro-enlistment group on Tuesday evening, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that there was a chance that “in three weeks this whole business could explode.”
Turning to his meeting last week with Netanyahu, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and Defense Minister Israel Katz, Edelstein reportedly stated that he had made it clear that “I am not willing to compromise on matters of principle.”
Edelstein has long blocked the advancement of the exemption legislation through his committee, pledging that any law on the issue of Haredi service would “significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
Last week, he announced that after months of deliberations, the committee was set to begin rewriting the legislation — raising Haredi concerns that he would advance a version mandating harsh sanctions on draft evaders.
In leaked remarks from a closed meeting of Edelstein’s committee earlier this week, Netanyahu was quoted as saying that 10,500 ultra-Orthodox men would be conscripted into the IDF within the next two years, and that those who refuse to serve would face consequences.
This number is significantly less than the 12,000 new soldiers that the IDF says it needs. Edelstein has personally called for the mobilization of all eligible Israelis, in accordance with the needs and capacity of the army, starting in 2026.
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