Netanyahu’s Likud denies reaching out to Ra’am to shore up support for Haredi draft exemption bill

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party denies that it has initiated contacts with Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party in the opposition in order to convince the Islamist party to vote in favor of its controversial draft exemption bill regulating ultra-Orthodox conscription.

“The report on Channel 12 claiming that there were contacts or ‘feelers’ between Likud or anyone on our behalf and the Ra’am party regarding the conscription law is completely fake,” says Likud spokesman Guy Levy. “This is yet another baseless invention, part of the campaign being waged against the new conscription law: a historic law that will, for the first time since the establishment of the state, lead to the enlistment of about 23,000 Haredim over three and a half years.”

Citing sources within Ra’am, the network reported over the weekend that Likud had reached out in an effort to compensate for resistance to the bill within the Likud itself. Although Ra’am party officials were quoted as saying that they hadn’t ruled out talks on the matter, they said they were not interested in taking steps to “save this coalition.”

Abbas last week accused Netanyahu of “trying to steal the election,” after the premier appeared to threaten to outlaw the Arab political party on the grounds that it is apparently connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.