From the Liveblog of
Monday, October 28, 2024
Goldknopf demands PM deal with Haredi draft exemption before budget; Smotrich: Not going to happen
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"
Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, reportedly demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postpone a cabinet meeting dealing with the budget in order to first deal with an enlistment bill currently being debated in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Goldknopf is said to propose that only selected parts of the 2025 state budget be advanced before the Haredi draft exemption issue is settled. But according to Hebrew media reports, Netanyahu tells the cabinet that there will be no movement on that bill before the budget.
Posting an article about Goldknopf’s demand on X, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich writes simply “it won’t happen.”
Earlier this month, Goldknopf threatened to bolt the coalition if a bill exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service isn’t passed before the 2025 state budget comes up for approval.
United Torah Judaism’s exit from the coalition would not topple the government, but would leave it extremely vulnerable with a bare majority of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Meanwhile, failure to pass a budget by March would trigger new elections.
Speaking in the Knesset this morning, MK Moshe Saada said that he and fellow Likud MK Dan Illouz would vote against the draft exemption measure while Foreign Affairs and Defense Chairman Yuli Edelstein told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that he was “not changing my position.”
Edelstein stated that the Haredim would have to compromise and that “the main mass of the ultra-Orthodox population that does not study 24/7 must contribute.”
“The law must be a real law that fully meets the needs of the IDF,” he insisted, adding that he was “determined to pass only a real law.”
Meanwhile, Smotrich is losing support from his base for his silence on the issue of draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men.
The Times of Israel Community.