Gafni threatens to pull support for AG bill at last minute, possibly tanking its passage

United Torah Judaism MK and Degel HaTorah faction leader Moshe Gafni is reportedly threatening to withhold support for the coalition’s bill weakening the role of the attorney general unless the government first approves tens of millions of shekels in additional funding for daycare teachers in the Haredi school system.

The bill is currently being debated in the Knesset and is expected to come to a final vote shortly. If Gafni follows through on his threat, the coalition may not have a majority to pass the legislation.

The ultimatum comes despite the coalition having already passed the ultra-Orthodox parties’ key demands this week – including laws halting the arrest of Haredi draft dodgers and a Basic Law for Torah study – under a coalition deal in exchange for Haredi support for the government’s legislation, including the current bill.

In a blistering response, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, which is promoting the legislation, accuses Gafni of effectively siding with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, declaring that she “should send a bouquet of flowers to Moshe Gafni” because he is “granting her immunity” and preserving her “judicial dictatorship.”

The party warns that if Gafni and his colleagues sink the bill, “they won’t be able to show their faces in the Haredi street,” adding: “They shouldn’t make threats.”

The legislation would effectively strip the attorney general of authority over the government by allowing ministers to disregard the currently binding legal opinions and decide for themselves whether their actions are lawful.

It has been fiercely opposed by opposition lawmakers, good-governance watchdogs and Baharav-Miara herself, with critics arguing that the government is seeking to remove one of the few remaining checks on executive power to advance legislation and policies that would otherwise be blocked as unlawful, without proposing any alternative safeguards.