Report: Haredi UTJ party will resign from government after Shavuot if no progress made on IDF conscription law

The Ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party is said to be preparing to resign from the government over its failure to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from military service.

The Haaretz daily reports that the party, led by Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, will either withdraw from the government or initiate proceedings to dissolve the Knesset and go to elections should the law not be passed immediately after the Shavuot holiday, which falls on Sunday night-Monday next week.

Meanwhile, fellow ultra-Orthodox party Shas is said to be striking a softer tone and is trying to appeal to UTJ to remain in the government. Should these attempts fail, Haaretz says that Shas will likely follow UTJ’s lead and resign as well, thereby presenting a united front.

According to the Walla news site, senior coalition officials believe it unlikely that Goldknopf will pull his party from the government, and estimate that rather than resigning outright, the party will instead increase the scope of its protests against Haredi conscription from within the government.

In recent months, the party has been boycotting Knesset legislation, and earlier this year, Goldknopf symbolically resigned from his secondary ministerial position as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Responding to the reports, Goldknopf’s office denies that he will pull UTJ from the governing coalition immediately after the Shavuot holiday, but says that unless there is progress, leaders from the party’s Degel HaTorah faction will soon hold a meeting to determine its next steps — “withdrawal from the coalition or advancing a law to dissolve the Knesset.”