Opposition MK says bill to dissolve Knesset wasn’t filed earlier to avoid coalition ‘closing ranks’

The Yisrael Beytenu opposition party has already submitted a bill to dissolve the Knesset, which it will “promote next week, and we very much hope that the Knesset will agree to end this circus,” party lawmaker Evgeny Sova tells The Times of Israel.

This morning, the spiritual leaders of Degel HaTorah, one of the two factions that make up the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, instructed their MKs to introduce a bill to dissolve the Knesset due to the coalition’s failure to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from conscription. This prompted the Yisrael Beytenu, The Democrats and Yesh Atid opposition parties to likewise announce they would submit legislation for the Knesset’s dissolution for an initial vote next week.

Because the opposition waited until Degel HaTorah’s MKs received their own instructions, showing cracks in the coalition, they missed the deadline for having such a bill considered by the plenum this week, causing a weeklong delay.

Asked why the opposition’s bills were not submitted earlier, Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz tells The Times of Israel that “we didn’t want to submit it before the Haredim’s meetings [with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] so as not to make them close ranks. In any case, there was no majority because Shas is not there yet. And of course, if the Haredim keep threatening [to do so], they are welcome to resign from the government.”

Following Tur-Paz’s remarks, it was reported that Shas is expected to come out in favor of dissolving the Knesset.