Haredi political official says parties have ‘lost faith’ in coalition over conscription issue

Speaking with Kan Radio, a senior ultra-Orthodox political official states that his allies have “lost faith” in the coalition regarding the Haredi conscription issue as they wait for Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein to finally present his revised enlistment bill to lawmakers.

“Everything that was promised to us on the eve of the attack on Iran has been canceled. We have lost trust in them. We are going back to the beginning,” a senior Haredi source tells the national broadcaster.

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, was widely expected to present lawmakers with a copy of a watered-down compromise bill regulating the conscription of yeshiva students on Monday — but has still not yet done so.

In response, the Haredi Shas and United Torah Judaism parties launched a legislative boycott, forcing the coalition to remove all their bills from the Knesset agenda on Monday and Tuesday.

The bill was initially supposed to have been ready in mid-June, but it was delayed by the war with Iran. However, despite the conflict ending on June 24, Edelstein has still not presented the full compromise draft to Haredi lawmakers, who hope to pass it into law before the conclusion of the summer legislative session at the end of July.