Hasidic MKs tell Netanyahu they’ll oppose budget if draft exemption law not passed
Report says despite PM’s promises, Haredi draft exemption bill likely to be postponed; out of 10,000 Haredim who received draft orders since July, only 177 have enlisted, IDF says
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"
Members of the coalition’s Agudath Yisrael faction sent a letter on Thursday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning they will vote against the state budget if the government does not pass legislation formalizing sweeping exemptions to mandatory military service for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.
The letter was signed by the faction’s leader, Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, along with MKs Ya’akov Tessler and Moshe Roth.
Agudath Yisrael is a Hasidic faction within the United Torah Judaism party, which also includes the non-Hasidic Degel HaTorah.
The announcement of the letter came soon after Ynet reported that senior members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition have become convinced that a controversial bill exempting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military conscription is unlikely to be passed during the current Knesset legislative session and will probably have to be delayed.
Despite the prime minister’s repeated assurances to his Haredi partners that the matter would be quickly resolved, it appears that “the conscription bill is dead,” the Hebrew-language news site quoted a senior coalition official as saying.
Among the reasons for the delay in passing the legislation was internal opposition to the bill by members of the coalition, including Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud).
Edelstein has pledged that his committee, which is preparing the bill for its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum, will “only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
Netanyahu “understood that he could no longer pressure Edelstein,” a Likud source told Ynet.
The Prime Minister’s Office pushed back against the report, telling Ynet that it was “fake news” and insisting that the law would be pushed through and would both “regulate the status” of yeshiva students while also increasing ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
UTJ chair Goldknopf warned last week that if the law is not passed before the 2025 state budget, it will never be passed — declaring that the controversial legislation must be given priority or the government will fall.
According to a report in the Hamodia daily, which is affiliated with Goldknopf’s Gur Hasidic movement, the housing minister complained during a UTJ faction meeting in the Knesset that a bill enshrining yeshiva students’ military exemptions should have been passed a long time ago, but Netanyahu’s government has repeatedly given excuses and postponed its advancement.
“We have two options before us: either they put off the conscription bill and we go to summer elections, or they insist on the conscription bill before the budget and the government completes its term,” Goldknopf insisted.
The 2025 state budget must be passed by the end of March or the government will automatically fall, triggering early elections.
In a similar move, last month, Aryeh Deri, the chairman of the Haredi Shas party, warned Netanyahu that he had two months to resolve the status of yeshiva students or “we’ll go to elections.”
However, only a day later, Shas spokesman Asher Medina walked the statement back, telling Channel 12 that his party would “not topple the right-wing government. There is no threat and no ultimatum.”
Since then, Shas lawmaker Avraham Betzalel publicly dismissed UTJ’s threat, telling Radio Kol Hai that there was no set date when the conscription law needed to be passed.
“There is no holy date for the conscription law. On the other hand, if the budget is not passed by the end of March, there will be no government. I think that a budget and a conscription law should be passed, without tying them together,” Betzalel said.
According to the Maariv daily, Goldknopf is believed to be planning to resign before the final budget votes in the Knesset, despite opposition from members of his party’s Degel Hatorah faction, who prefer to wait until after the passage of the budget if no law exempting yeshiva students from military service is passed.
In a move which appeared to further signal opposition to Goldknopf’s threats to oppose the budget over the enlistment issue, both Deri and Degel Hatorah leader MK Moshe Gafni issued a joint statement on Thursday morning praising it as good for Haredim.
The pair celebrated what they described as the Haredi camp’s “dramatic achievements” in increasing government funding of their institutions while also noting they were “continuing to work determinedly to settle the [enlistment] issue” and would “not rest or be silent until every threat to Torah students in Israel is removed.”
According to Radio Kol Hai, Degel Hatorah’s MKs were slated to meet with party spiritual leaders Rabbi Moshe Hirsch and Rabbi Dov Lando to receive their marching orders — which will likely be to accept the passage of the budget before the bill regulating exemptions.
Since the High Court of Justice ruled last summer that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, the army has sent out around 10,000 enlistment orders to members of the Haredi community.
However, only 177 have so far enlisted in the military, a senior IDF officer in charge of encouraging ultra-Orthodox enlistment told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday.
According to Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, 2,231 follow-up draft orders were sent to those who did not show up at induction centers after receiving a first order.
Over 1,000 “arrest warrants” have been issued against those who ignored the second draft order. The IDF Military Police does not plan to actually carry out arrests, but will instead wait until they are declared “draft evaders” and leave it to law enforcement.
After receiving an arrest warrant, those recruits will receive an immediate call-up order, and if they ignore it, will be declared draft evaders. The consequences of being declared a draft evader include receiving a “no exit order” — being barred from leaving the country — and during any encounter with the police, the draft dodger can be arrested.
So far, 265 Haredim out of the 10,000 have been declared draft evaders, Dickstein said.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
