Likud to boot Knesset defense panel head Edelstein for blocking Haredi draft exemption

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party will decide Wednesday on a replacement for MK Yuli Edelstein as head of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee over his refusal to advance a bill enshrining sweeping military service exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.

Netanyahu has been under growing pressure from within Likud to oust Edelstein, after the two Haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, last week bolted the government, blaming the lawmaker for his attempts to advance a version of the bill that would guarantee significant draft quotas and sanctions for evaders.

In a message to party MKs on Monday afternoon, Likud faction chairman Ofir Katz announced that he had decided to “hold elections” for the position and that nominations for Edelstein’s replacement could be submitted until Tuesday at 8 p.m. Several Likud MKs quickly tossed their hats in the ring, with a meeting scheduled for Wednesday to decide on the winner.

Whoever is chosen will still need to be approved by the Knesset’s House Committee as well as the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee itself.

Katz’s announcement drew immediate condemnation from opposition politicians, with Blue and White-National Unity chairman Benny Gantz declaring that Israel’s security was “being sacrificed on the altar of preserving the coalition” and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid threatening to pull all opposition MKs out of the committee.

A spokesman for Edelstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The previous day, Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Edelstein’s committee, demanded that the party select a new chairman and put himself forth as a candidate.

Writing to Katz on Sunday, Milwidsky accused Edelstein of acting in an “oppositional” manner toward Netanyahu and his coalition allies.

Milwidsky has assailed calls to draft Haredi men en masse, and said in a Knesset speech on Thursday that although he is secular, “as a Jew” he would refuse to take part in “harming the world of Torah.”

“We need soldiers, yes, but no soldier will help if we break the thing that truly holds us up. And that thing is not some Western value that was born 200 years ago — it’s the Torah, it’s Judaism,” he said.

Ahead of the news of Edelstein’s impending replacement, Milwidsky and fellow Likud MK Amit Halevi staged a filibuster in a committee meeting Monday, preventing any advancement on an unrelated military pension bill and forcing Edelstein to end the meeting without a vote.

Fellow committee member Boaz Bismuth’s name has also been raised in connection with the position, while Likud MK Nissim Vaturi told national broadcaster Kan that he intends to seek the committee chairmanship. MK Eli Dalal also said he would run for the spot.

Likud MK Tally Gotliv, another alternate member of the committee, endorsed Bismuth, calling him a “superstar.” It has long been necessary to replace Edelstein because he was “undermining the government,” she added.

Salvaging a relationship

Following Katz’s announcement, multiple Likud ministers and lawmakers appealed to Netanyahu to arrange an “urgent” meeting of the right-wing factions to advance an outline for legislation that would “ensure continued partnership with the ultra-Orthodox public and its representatives in the Knesset.”

Lawmaker Eliyahu Revivo, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, Energy Ministry Eli Cohen and several others insisted that “for the first time in many years, we are witnessing a precedent-setting, genuine, profound, and courageous move led by the Haredi parties in a sincere attempt to bring about a new and fair regulation of the conscription issue.”

However, advancement on the issue had been stymied by the presentation of demands “apparently intended to torpedo” any agreement, they claimed.

“We cannot turn our backs on our natural partners” nor “harm the continuity of right-wing rule — this is a national interest of the highest order,” they said.

Coalition sources indicated that there is no possibility of passing a law regulating Haredi enlistment before the end of the current Knesset’s legislative session later this week. The Knesset will reconvene on October 19 for the winter session.

A diminished coalition

Last Monday, the Haredi United Torah Judaism party quit the coalition after being presented with a copy of a proposed enlistment bill prepared by Edelstein, which they argued violated the terms of a compromise reached last month when an effort was being made to prevent the Haredim from toppling the government ahead of the war with Iran.

They were followed on Wednesday by Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which bolted the government while, unlike UTJ, remaining a member of the coalition.

Edelstein has said any conscription law would have to include personal and institutional sanctions on draft dodgers. His bill failed to deliver on several key Haredi demands, including offering full amnesty to yeshiva students who have already received and ignored enlistment orders.

It also reportedly contained a clause requiring yeshiva students who received exemptions to check in and out of their yeshivas using a fingerprint scanner — angering the Haredim.

The Haredi parties are looking to pass legislation that would enshrine sweeping exemptions from mandatory military service for ultra-Orthodox men.

Netanyahu reportedly recently proposed removing Edelstein as head of the committee in a bid to placate Shas, which responded that the move was too little, too late, and insisted on immediate progress on the draft exemption bill.

‘It is time to draft everyone’

Addressing reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting, Opposition Leader Lapid declared that the opposition would not cooperate with Netanyahu’s “illegitimate move,” which he said would harm IDF soldiers and reserve personnel.

“Let every mother of Israel know that Benjamin Netanyahu is selling her children, the security of all of us, the very idea of equality before the law, to the Haredim,” Lapid declared. “I hereby inform the prime minister — if Yuli Edelstein is removed from the position of chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the opposition members serving on the committee will resign.”

“Israel’s security is being sacrificed on the altar of preserving the coalition — every Likud MK who votes in favor of ousting Edelstein should have the courage to look our fighters in the eyes first,” Blue and White-National Unity chairman Gantz likewise told reporters at his own party’s faction meeting.

Public outrage over Haredi draft evasion has swelled as reservists have served for hundreds of days since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.

The Haredi parties have long demanded legislation enshrining in law a decades-long broad exemption of Haredi young men from Israel’s mandatory military conscription, which was rejected as lacking a legal basis by the High Court of Justice last summer. The court ordered that the Haredim be drafted, in the absence of a law that exempted them.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for IDF service but have not enlisted.

The IDF has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits to alleviate the strain on standing and reservist forces amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

Currently, only around 1,800 Haredim enlist annually.