From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Deri sets ultimatum to Netanyahu: If Haredi draft law doesn’t pass in next 2 months, government will fall
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"
Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri threatens to bring down the government unless it passes a conscription law exempting yeshiva students from military service in the next 60 days.
Speaking with ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Berama, Deri declares that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition have two months to regulate the status of Torah students, and “if it’s not regulated, we’ll go to elections.”
“Who would have dreamed that Torah scholars would be called criminals,” he asks — alleging that members of the religious Zionist community have become “partners in this hate campaign” and arguing that it is they and not him who “will bring about the fall of the right-wing government.”
While not stated explicitly, Deri’s threat likely relates to Shas’s support — or potential lack thereof — for the 2025 state budget, which must be passed by the end of March 2025 or the government will automatically fall, triggering early elections.
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is currently debating a bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment, although chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) has warned that he “would only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
The Times of Israel Community.