Knesset winter session to feature battles over budget, judiciary and Haredi enlistment

Following a controversial three-month recess, their second since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023, lawmakers reconvened in the Knesset on Sunday for the start of a winter session expected to be marked by a series of bitter legislative battles over the state budget, ultra-Orthodox military service, civil rights, and the potential revival of the government’s judicial overhaul program.

The budget and the draft

As the war against Hamas and Hezbollah enters its second year, MKs will be tasked with solving two related problems: paying for the war and solving the Israel Defense Forces’ manpower shortage.

Last week, the Finance Ministry presented a list of politically tough spending cuts and tax hikes, including freezing some pension benefits and upping contributions to national insurance, to fund shortfalls in next year’s state budget wrought by rising war costs.

Many of the measures included in the draft of the budget precursor, the Economic Arrangements Law — such as raising taxes for those in the lowest income brackets and hiking fees for the unemployed — are likely to draw objections from members of both the coalition and opposition.

But before they can pass the 2025 state budget, lawmakers will be forced to reckon with threats by the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party to block passage of the spending bill until the Knesset advances legislation facilitating sweeping exemptions for Haredi men from mandatory military service.

“Without a doubt, the conscription law will be passed before the government approves the budget… [but] if it doesn’t happen, we won’t be in the government,” party head and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf told the Makor Rishon newspaper last week.

In June, the High Court of Justice ruled that there is no legal basis for the decades-long practice of exempting Haredi men from the military draft. A bill that seeks to regulate the issue is currently stuck in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, has said that it will only pass if lawmakers can reach a “broad consensus” on the matter.

Some have linked the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment with a manpower shortage experienced by the military, especially in combat roles and in the reserves, arguing that the Haredi community is shirking its wartime responsibility to help the army fight its multifront war.

The ultra-Orthodox are also expected to make a legislative push to reverse cuts to yeshiva budgets and government subsidies for daycare for the children of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students enacted following this summer’s High Court ruling.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have said they intend to pass the budget by the end of the year. Failure to pass the budget by March 31 will result in the dissolution of the government and early elections.

Despite their vehement rhetoric, however, Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak, who is spearheading the opposition Yesh Atid party’s criticism of the proposed budget, said that he does not believe that the ultra-Orthodox will end up opposing the budget.

“I think these are idle threats. Of course, it depends on what happens with the conscription law,” he said, adding that he believes that critics of the budget within the coalition will “fold” in the end. “I don’t take it seriously,” he said.

Foreign affairs and defense

In parallel with discussions on the recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will return to the issue of IDF reservists, some of whom have had to serve more than 200 days since October 7.

Despite the recess, the committee has continued to meet and last month its members began preparing a quasi-constitutional Basic Law enshrining reserve duty as a “fundamental value” of the state for the first of three readings necessary to become law.

The proposal would give preferential treatment to reservists in land purchases, academic admissions and civil service employment.

The Knesset is also expected to deal with a government-backed bill lengthening mandatory service for male Israel Defense Forces soldiers to three years, as well as a pair of bills intended to limit the activities of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Another bill recently approved for its final readings in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee would prohibit the establishment of new consulates in Jerusalem, while requiring the government to encourage the establishment of foreign embassies in the city.

Crime, terror and civil rights

Meanwhile, several controversial measures backed by the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism coalition parties — aimed at combating organized crime and terrorism — which were in the works before the recess are expected to be back on the table in the new legislative session.

In the Knesset National Security Committee, lawmakers have been debating a bill allowing district court judges to impose restrictions on citizens’ freedom of movement and expression on the basis of secret evidence.

At the same time, the Knesset House Committee is currently preparing a bill to allow the government to strip citizenship or residency and deport relatives of terrorists (who knew of attacks in advance and expressed sympathy and encouragement) for the second and third readings necessary for it to become law.

Despite efforts to restrict some rights, however, Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, the chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice committee, is currently pushing a bill banning the use of administrative detention or administrative restraining orders against Israeli citizens, unless they are members of a certain list of terror groups.

It is largely seen as a far-right effort aimed at preventing the government from using the tool against Jewish terror suspects, leading to accusations of discrimination from rights groups.

Speaking with The Times of Israel on Monday morning, Rothman pointed to what he said were his three primary legislative priorities during the coming legislative session.

The first is a bill allowing the Israel Police to open investigations on suspicion of incitement to terrorism without the approval of the State Attorney’s Office.

“It’s a major problem because the police want to investigate, and the prosecution prevents them from even starting the investigation and arresting the people,” he complained. “This creates a major problem when dealing with terror, as we know that with incitement to terror, if you don’t act fast, then it spreads and it’s dangerous.”

Investigations of suspected offenses of this kind currently require the approval of the State Attorney’s Office because of concerns that the right to freedom of expression may be infringed upon if the police interpret the law too broadly.

Rothman’s second priority is a bill that would prohibit the Public Defender’s Office from providing legal representation to those defined by law as illegal combatants and “how to actually prosecute them.”

Bereaved parents and right-wing politicians have vocally objected to the state funding the legal defense of members of Hamas’s Nukhba force, whose members spearheaded the October 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel.

The judiciary

Rothman’s third priority is a bill that would transfer authority to appoint the state ombudsman for judges to the Knesset, giving lawmakers a greater say in how the justice system is run.

The ombudsman provides oversight and investigates complaints against judges and has until now been chosen by the Judicial Appointments Committee — a body that includes representatives of the High Court, Knesset and Bar Association — following a joint nomination by the justice minister and the president of the High Court.

Rothman is one of the architects of the government’s deeply controversial judicial overall proposals, which multiple members of Netanyahu’s cabinet — including Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who is reportedly considering introducing legislation to revamp the Judicial Selection Committee — have recently called to revive.

Asked if he intended to heed such calls and restart the legislative effort, Rothman responded that “any change that I propose to the judiciary, to the system, will be labeled by people as part of the judicial overhaul.”

“It doesn’t really matter if it’s part of Yariv [Levin’s] original plan or not. It doesn’t really matter. Like the ombudsman — when I passed the ombudsman law, the opposition went crazy and said, ‘You’re bringing back the judicial overhaul,'” he said.

Queried further as to whether he planned to bring back any of the bills that were part of Levin’s original agenda, Rothman replied that legislation that seeks to change the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee will become law “the second there is political will in the coalition to pass it.”

“Other [bills] we already passed. The one on the Reasonableness Clause, it’s already passed,” he said, referring to a key piece of the judicial overhaul effort that was struck down by the High Court of Justice in January.

“And if you ask me, it’s valid legislation. The court cannot cancel a Basic Law and there is no need to pass it again,” he continued, reiterating his argument that anything he passes relating to the judiciary will be interpreted as part of the overhaul.

“I have legislation now to change the Basic Law of the Judiciary, to say that the Palestinian Authority cannot go to court in Israel. Is it part of the judicial reform?”