PM may initiate early elections, preempt Haredi threats over enlistment bill, ministers tell ToI

In recent days, some government ministers are asserting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may decide soon to dismantle the coalition and go to early elections of his own initiative, if he feels like the Haredi parties indeed intend to topple the government over the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the military.

“Netanyahu knows there is no solution to the Haredi enlistment matter,” a senior minister tells Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site. “He is bidding for time and will eventually say that ‘on this important matter, I didn’t cave.’ This way, he’ll at least win the election with the support of reservists and civilians who can’t live with the inequality in military conscription.”

The issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the IDF is politically fraught, with community leadership decrying it as secularization of its young men and ordering yeshiva students to defy callups.

Decades of efforts to pass a law regulating the matter have fallen flat as the High Court of Justice strikes down any law remotely acceptable to Haredi leaders as it harms the principle of equality.

Last year, the court ruled that decades-long sweeping exemptions for the community are unlawful, and the Haredi parties have been demanding the passage of a law enshrining the exemptions for most men.

Netanyahu has been pushing off the matter, diffusing periodic crises and threats to topple the government mid-war, but the threats to the coalition appear to be more serious this time, with no solution in sight and potential political rivals escalating their attacks on the government over the issue.