Coalition scrambles for deal with Haredim ahead of preliminary vote to dissolve Knesset

Hours ahead of a preliminary vote to dissolve the Knesset, senior coalition officials, including Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, were engaged in intensive last-ditch talks with Haredi representatives in an effort to reach a compromise on the issue of military exemptions for yeshiva students and prevent the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox factions from supporting the opposition-backed effort to bring down the government.

According to Hebrew media reports, Fuchs and coalition whip Ofir Katz, along with Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik, were directing their efforts toward finding a compromise draft of an enlistment bill that all sides can support — including the possibility that some sanctions on draft dodgers could be postponed by half a year or more.

However, no agreement has yet been reached, the Israel Hayom daily cited Afik as writing in a WhatsApp chat.

Asked how close the coalition is to a compromise, a spokesperson for Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) told The Times of Israel that he does not know.

Advancing the dissolution bill

In a joint statement on Wednesday morning, the Knesset opposition parties announced that they would place bills to dissolve the Knesset on today’s agenda, adding that the decision was “made unanimously and is binding on all factions.”

“In addition, in coordination between all factions, it was decided to remove opposition legislation from the agenda in order to concentrate all efforts on one goal: to overthrow the government,” read the statement.

If the legislation to dissolve the Knesset passes its preliminary vote late Wednesday, it would still need to pass three further votes to take effect. If it is voted down, the opposition will have to wait six months to bring another Knesset dissolution bill to a vote.

It remains unclear if both the Haredi parties will ultimately support the legislation to dissolve the Knesset in the preliminary vote.

According to the Kikar Hashabbat news site, Shas MKs have said that they have not yet received instructions on how to vote.

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline coalition currently holding 68 out of the 120 parliamentary seats, both Shas and United Torah Judaism would need to back the dissolution measure for it to pass.

The two parties have publicly said that they will vote to dissolve the Knesset in the bill’s preliminary reading due to the coalition’s failure to pass legislation exempting yeshiva students from military service. However, Shas is working hard behind the scenes to find a compromise and postpone the vote.

According to HaDerech, Shas’s official newspaper, the party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages was to decide on a course of action on Wednesday.

In an apparent attempt to buy time while it negotiates, the coalition packed the Knesset’s agenda with numerous bills, likely delaying a preliminary vote until late at night or early morning.

At the same time, both Haredi parties also lifted their partial legislative boycott, allowing them to vote for the coalition bills on the agenda ahead of the dissolution bill.

The now-paused boycott has led to the removal of private members bills sponsored by coalition lawmakers from the Knesset agenda for the last several weeks.

Potential backtracking

According to Ynet, Shas is currently placing pressure on UTJ’s Degel HaTorah faction to withdraw its support for measures to dissolve the Knesset for another week in order to provide Netanyahu with more time to broker an agreement.

Though the ultra-Orthodox parties are still negotiating, they are ready to go ahead with the vote to dissolve the Knesset, United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Roth told The Times of Israel.

“There’s nobody excited about this. It’s a last resort but we have no choice,” he stated.

Roth, who belongs to UTJ’s Agudat Yisrael faction, said he had no knowledge of any contacts between Shas and Degel HaTorah.

At the same time, the ultra-Orthodox Kikar Hashabbat news site quoted senior Shas and Degel HaTorah officials as saying that “if there is no breakthrough, we will vote in favor of dissolving the Knesset, but we must remember that the goal is not elections but the regulation of the status of yeshiva students. We will do everything to regulate their status.”

According to the site, Rabbi Dov Lando, the chairman of Degel HaTorah’s ruling Council of Torah Sages, has indicated that he will not agree to a compromise unless a revised bill is approved by the Knesset and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s legal advisers and contains “an orderly and agreed-upon timetable for the enactment of the law.”

Meanwhile, speaking with Haaretz, an official linked to Agudat Yisrael warned that if Degel HaTorah and Shas oppose the dissolution measure, his faction’s ministers will resign.

According to the ultra-Orthodox Behadrei Haredim news site, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush has been working behind the scenes in recent days to reverse Agudat Yisrael’s decision to support the dissolution of the Knesset.

Porush was said to be working on behalf of several senior rabbis opposed to the move, including Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the leader of the Belz Hasidic sect, who believes that the government should not be brought down in the middle of a war.

A spokesman for Porush denied the report when asked on Tuesday.

An ‘existential danger’

Addressing the Knesset on Wednesday morning, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned that bringing down the government during wartime would pose an “existential danger” to Israel.

“History will not forgive anyone who drags the State of Israel into elections during a war and leads to a loss in the war,” the Religious Zionism party chairman declared from the Knesset rostrum.

“We need our ultra-Orthodox brothers to be part of the great mitzvah of military service with us. It is a great mitzvah and it is also an existential, national and security need,” he said, arguing that this needs to be accomplished with the government intact.

Education Minister Yoav Kisch (Likud) made a similar statement, telling lawmakers that whoever topples the government in the middle of a war and “prevents us from achieving victory… will not be forgotten.”

Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, a member of Edelstein’s committee, dismissed Haredi threats, asking how dissolving the Knesset would help advance a bill regulating Haredi enlistment.

“It’s just trolling,” he said.