Knesset committee to vote Monday on Bismuth replacing Edelstein on key panel to advance Haredi draft law

The Knesset House Committee is set to vote on Monday on appointing MK Boaz Bismuth as chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

In a move widely seen as aimed at soothing troubled relations with the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox factions and enabling the advance of a law enshrining the exemption from IDF service of most ultra-Orthodox males, lawmakers belonging to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party voted overwhelmingly last week to replace current committee chairman Yuli Edelstein with fellow Likud MK Boaz Bismuth.

Edelstein was ousted over his refusal to advance a conscription bill based on a compromise reached with the Haredi parties last month, under which most ultra-Orthodox males would continue to avoid IDF or other national service.

Netanyahu had been under growing pressure from within Likud to oust Edelstein, after the two Haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, bolted the government earlier this month, blaming the lawmaker for his attempts to advance a version of the bill that would guarantee significant draft quotas and sanctions for evaders.

If approved by the House Committee, Bismuth’s appointment will still need to pass a vote in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee itself.

The House Committee is also slated to hold votes on candidates to chair the labor and interior committees as well as the Special Committee for the Rights of the Child and the Special Committee for Bridging Social Gaps in the Periphery. It has not yet announced when a vote will be held on a candidate to head the Ethics Committee, which until recently was chaired by UTJ’s Moshe Roth.