Likud clamps down on dissent over Haredi draft bills after Gallant pushed out
Coalition whip sanctions Likud MKs Illouz and Edelstein after they publicly oppose legislation they say will enable continued ultra-Orthodox draft evasion
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"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party took steps on Wednesday to clamp down on internal dissent by party lawmakers opposed to legislation that would enshrine the exemption of members of the ultra-Orthodox community from military service.
The push for party discipline came a day after Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in a move widely seen as tied in part to Gallant’s opposition to the controversial military draft exemption legislation, which has been demanded by ultra-Orthodox coalition partners whose support Likud needs to stay in power.
On Wednesday evening, coalition whip Ofir Katz informed Likud MK Dan Illouz that he was being taken off two powerful Knesset committees due to his “statements regarding coalition discipline and his conduct in recent days,” a spokesperson for Katz said.
In addition to losing his spot on the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Illouz will be barred from submitting private bills for the next month and a half.
Illouz has long spoken out against efforts to pass new legislation regulating exemptions for yeshiva students following a High Court ruling in June that they must enlist in the IDF unless a new bill is passed.
Most recently, Illouz announced that he opposed the coalition’s so-called Daycare Bill, which seeks to circumvent a High Court ruling preventing state-funded daycare subsidies from going to the children of ultra-Orthodox men who evade the draft.
Writing on X last week, the freshman lawmaker insisted that “there will be no enlistment [of Haredim] without significant personal sanctions.”
“Exempting such a large group from the duty to serve in the IDF in such a critical period is a non-Zionist act that is unworthy of us as a nation — whether it be called ‘the enlistment law’ or ‘the daycare law,’ whose purpose is to cancel the daycares sanction and restore the funding,” he declared.
Responding to the sanctions against him, Illouz on Wednesday tweeted that he “knew my statement of values would have a price and I am [ready] to pay it.”
Later that evening, Ilouz tweeted that a recent survey showed that 80% of Likud backers support drafting ultra-Orthodox men to the IDF. Illouz called on his followers to join the party and bolster “this point of view in Likud.”
Katz also reportedly sanctioned senior Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, who has used his position as the head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to hold up the enlistment exemption bill.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, Edelstein will not be allowed to submit any bills for a month and will be barred from speaking on behalf of the Likud party.
In a gesture of solidarity with Illouz and Edelstein, Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer said the two Likud lawmakers would be allowed to submit bills out of his party’s quota.
“The fact that they stood like a wall in the face of the evasion laws requires a reward and not a punishment,” Forer said in a statement.
Edelstein recently announced that he would not support the Daycare Bill, stating that during a time of war, Israel’s leaders are “obligated to make every effort to provide the IDF with additional soldiers.”
As such, “I will not lend my hand to the Daycare Law, nor to any law that attempts to circumvent our ceaseless efforts to expand the conscription base in the State of Israel,” Edelstein said in a video statement sent to the press on Monday.
The Daycare Bill was removed from the Knesset agenda on Tuesday after it failed to garner sufficient coalition support.
A bill seeking to regulate ultra-Orthodox enlistment is currently stuck in Edelstein’s committee, where he said it will only pass if lawmakers can reach a “broad consensus” on the matter.
Addressing the committee on Wednesday, Edelstein stated that he had summoned the prime minister for a hearing over Gallant’s firing and that “he must appear before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the coming days.”
“Personally, I don’t change my positions according to the person who sits in the Prime Minister’s Office, the person who sits in the Defense Minister’s Bureau or the person who fills any other post,” Edelstein said. “If and when the new defense minister — whom we all wish success in the war effort, as well as the draft effort — will be ready to sit down and talk, I have not changed my position that the [draft] bill should be real.
“A real law should be presented, with real numbers, with sanctions and with everything that is necessary. We as a committee will continue with this line, and I hope we will receive cooperation from the relevant elements in the government.”
The coalition whip’s moves against Illouz and Edelstein followed close on the heels of the firing of Gallant, another opponent of the conscription legislation.
On Monday, the IDF announced that it would send out another 7,000 draft orders to members of the ultra-Orthodox community next week, after a previous round of thousands of draft orders saw little success.
Responding to Netanyahu’s decision to fire him Tuesday evening, Gallant explicitly listed his opposition to draft exemptions as one of the reasons for his ouster, stating that the “discriminatory, corrupt law” on Haredi enlistment must not be allowed to pass.
Netanyahu said Gallant had lost his trust due to various disagreements, accusing him of indirectly aiding Israel’s enemies during wartime. The move was widely pilloried by the opposition and sparked angry protests in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere.
The premier also appeared to neutralize additional opposition to the Daycare Law and enlistment bill on Wednesday, signing a coalition agreement with incoming Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope.
While Sa’ar has recently pledged to vote against the Daycare Bill, his coalition agreement with Likud only gives him discretion to vote differently than the coalition on bills concerning changes to the judicial system and medical cannabis.
Speaking with The Times of Israel, an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter said that while New Hope still officially opposes the bill, actively voting against it could be tricky due to their coalition agreement with Likud.
However, the party “could abstain” and “right now it’s not coming to a vote,” the source said.
Sa’ar has previously expressed doubt about the coalition’s efforts to legislate a solution to the Haredi draft issue, telling The Times of Israel in June that “if we cannot legislate a good law, it’s better not to legislate a law at all.”
