Shas MK appears to dismiss UTJ threat to bring down government over conscription bill

By Sam Sokol 27 February 2025, 10:01 am

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

MK Avraham Betzalel of Shas at the Knesset on January 18, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90/ File)

Shas MK Avraham Betzalel appears to dismiss threats by fellow ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism to bring down the government in the event that a bill largely exempting yeshiva students from military service is not passed before the 2025 state budget.

“There is no holy date for the conscription law. On the other hand, if the budget is not passed by the end of March, there will be no government. I think that a budget and a conscription law should be passed, without tying them together,” Betzalel tells Radio Kol Hai.

Betzalel’s comments came a day after UTJ chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf was quoted in the Haredi daily Hamodia as saying that “either they put off the conscription bill and we go to summer elections, or they insist on the conscription bill before the budget and the government completes its term.”

Asked if Shas would agree to wait until after the budget is passed next month to pass the exemption legislation, Betzalel replies that within his party, “we don’t see this as a ‘postponement,’ even though it was agreed upon in the coalition agreements as the first thing. I believe that a law will be drafted in the near future.”

“We don’t think that if the budget is passed before conscription, it is [terrible],” he adds.

In January, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri warned Netanyahu that he had two months to resolve the status of yeshiva students or “we’ll go to elections.” However, the following day, a party spokesman told Channel 12 that his party would “not topple the right-wing government” and that there was “no threat and no ultimatum.”

Appearing to openly break with his party’s official stance earlier this week, Interior Minister Moshe Arbel declared that Haredi Jews should serve in the Israeli armed forces.

Addressing a conference organized by the right-wing Israel National News outlet on Monday, Arbel said that “it is possible and necessary to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, to remain Haredi even after the conclusion of service. This is the mission of the IDF and this is the mission of the State of Israel.”