From Haredi faction says it will abstain on key budget increase bill, making passage harder for coalition
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"
In a statement, the Degel HaTorah faction announces that its MKs will abstain in a key vote on a massive increase to the defense budget in the Knesset today, and will not supporting it because the coalition has failed to meet its commitments to the ultra-Orthodox party.
However, the faction also won’t vote against the measure since “the amendment being presented today is exclusively for the needs of the security establishment and does not involve any cuts to civilian provisions [of the budget].”
The statement adds that ahead of further votes on the bill, the party’s decision-making rabbinical Council of Torah Sages “will instruct [MKs] on how to vote.”
Degel HaTorah quit the coalition this summer along with fellow Haredi faction Agudat Yisrael, which together make up the United Torah Judaism party. Currently, the coalition and opposition are deadlocked with 60 seats each, so the decision to abstain, while making it harder on the coalition, gives it a chance to make sure there are more yes votes than no.
In a separate statement, a spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando, Degel HaTorah’s spiritual leader, says that the senior rabbi instructed that lawmakers “‘demonstratively abstain’ during voting on the budget today.”
Knesset lawmakers are slated to vote this afternoon on hiking the 2025 state budget by NIS 31 billion ($9 billion), most of it to bolster the defense budget, with NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) in funding for humanitarian aid to Gaza.
After it was approved by the cabinet last month, Degel HaTorah chief Moshe Gafni appeared to threaten to vote against the increase due to a cut of NIS 481 million ($142 million) in taxpayer money set aside for Haredi schools’ eventual inclusion in the government’s New Horizon program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives.
Haredi schools, which do not teach core subjects such as math or science, have been excluded from the program, but the money to add them is being set aside until laws are changed to allow the funds to be allocated.
The Times of Israel Community.