Netanyahu, Levin said seeking to freeze overhaul for a year to focus on Haredi draft law

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin are leading a push to freeze any future legislation of the judicial overhaul for an entire year, the Israel Hayom news site reports, citing senior coalition officials.

The goal is to calm the anti-overhaul movement and create the space needed to pass a controversial law regulating military draft exemptions for Haredi men, a law that the ultra-Orthodox parties are relentlessly demanding on the basis of a Likud promise in the coalition agreements. In recent days, Likud officials have reportedly told the Haredi parties that the public atmosphere is too volatile to legislate that law.

Netanyahu and Levin are waiting for the approval of President Isaac Herzog, hoping the latter will give his blessing and that this will formalize the freeze and cause the protests to weaken, the report says.

Responding to a report that the Haredi parties have demanded a halt to the overhaul, an unnamed government minister is quoted by Israel Hayom as saying: “The Haredim are trying to take credit for a move that is already underway, to soften the criticism of them on the matter of the enlistment law.”