Haredi parties to boycott government votes over failure to pass IDF exemption law
Ultra-Orthodox MK warns that if legislation doesn’t pass during current Knesset session, ‘we will have a very big problem sitting in such a government’
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"
Both of the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox parties will boycott votes on coalition legislation on Wednesday, in protest of the government’s failure to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from military service.
A spokesman for United Torah Judaism, MK Moshe Gafni, the chairman of the party’s Degel HaTorah faction, confirmed Hebrew media reports that UTJ had decided on Monday, during its weekly faction meeting, that, starting on Wednesday, the party would no longer vote with the coalition.
Frustrated by the government’s failure to pass a bill, party officials had previously said that they no longer considered themselves bound by coalition discipline going into the Knesset’s summer session, which began this week and will run until the end of July.
Gafni’s spokesman also confirmed that UTJ is coordinating its actions with its fellow ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, with both parties informing coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud) that they would act in concert in boycotting bills during Wednesday’s plenum session.
A spokesman for Shas, Chairman Aryeh Deri, did not immediately answer a request for comment.
Responding to UTJ and Shas’s boycott threats, Likud MK Dan Illouz declared on X that “if the Haredi factions boycott the government’s votes and harm the ability to maintain a normal daily routine, the Likud should also be freed from automatically voting for their legislation.”
“The Likud is not a doormat, but a magnificent national movement — the largest in the coalition and in the Knesset. I will not let you humiliate us,” he wrote.
‘We will have a very big problem’
UTJ also appeared to threaten on Monday to withdraw from the government completely, party MK Yaakov Asher telling Haredi news site Kikar HaShabbat (Hebrew) that if the Knesset does not pass draft exemption legislation by the end of the summer session, his party will no longer be able to remain in the government.
In an interview, Asher said that, while his party gave the coalition more time after it had failed to pass such a law before the 2025 state budget, it cannot wait any longer.
“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.”
“I can tell you, we don’t know how to sit in a government that will come and say we’re not passing this law,” he continued, calling the legislation “the most important thing for the Jewish people.”
UTJ’s Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction and Shas have both previously threatened to bring down the government by opposing the 2025 state budget over the enlistment issue — before backing down and voting in favor.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners 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.
Despite the prime minister’s assurances to his ultra-Orthodox allies, the legislation, scorned by critics as an “evasion law,” has long been held up in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) has pledged that he will “only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
Last week, Edelstein asserted that his committee is nearing a final draft of a law regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
Netanyahu is scheduled to attend a closed session of the committee next week to discuss the IDF’s recent call-up of tens of thousands of reservists ahead of its upcoming Gaza offensive, while large numbers of Haredim remain outside the military.
Widespread resentment
Blanket draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox public have become exceedingly unpopular even within the coalition, in light of the IDF’s manpower squeeze during the ongoing war and the strain it has put on Israeli society.
The army has stated that it is facing a manpower shortage and currently needs some 12,000 new soldiers — 7,000 of whom would be combat troops.
Currently, approximately 80,000 Haredi men between the ages of 18 and 24 are eligible for military service and have not enlisted. The IDF has sent out 18,915 initial draft orders to members of the Haredi community in several waves since July 2024, but according to Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, head of the Haredi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, only 232 of those who have received orders have enlisted — 57 of them in combat roles.
Despite the army aiming to recruit 4,800 Haredi men during the 2024-2025 draft cycle, only around 1,821 have enlisted thus far.
Opposition politicians have harshly criticized Netanyahu for failing to conscript meaningful numbers of Haredim, with National Unity chairman Benny Gantz telling reporters on Monday that the government was “busy dividing the people, not winning the war. It is calling up thousands of soldiers while continuing to release the ultra-Orthodox and Arabs from service.”
Addressing a tech conference in Ness Ziona on Monday, former prime minister Naftali Bennett said that most coalition parties are currently headed by politicians who are “either draft dodgers or have evaded significant military service.”
“The heads of the state today are working day and night to find ways to transfer billions to continue the same evasion. So there is a nation with a majority that serves, being led by a leadership that pushes evasion, and that must change, and the people want the big change,” added Bennett, who is being touted as a possible candidate for the premiership in the next national elections.
Sanctions and exemptions
During a press conference ahead of his Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insisted that the current status quo “will not continue” and predicted that a conscription law “tailored to the needs of the State of Israel” will be passed during the current legislative session.
Asked if he would support a bill containing personal sanctions against draft dodgers, Smotrich replied that he is in favor a bill containing “significant enforcement tools to ensure that it is not empty of content. Including in this matter.”
Smotrich appeared to echo Defense Minister Israel Katz on the matter, telling a conference organized by the right-wing Besheva newspaper earlier in the day that “there will be a conscription law, with a target of 50 percent conscription within seven years, accompanied by sanctions and enforcement. The Haredi leadership will give it legitimacy, and the army will finally start conscripting.”
Katz, who also supports coming to terms with a rabbinic leadership that has strongly ruled out military service for its followers, has pushed for a plan under which the number of Haredim drafted into the military would be increased gradually year-over-year until it hits 50% of the annual eligible Haredi draft cohort in 2032.
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