Shas MK: Party ‘is in the right-wing bloc’ despite quitting coalition posts

A Shas lawmaker said that the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party is still part of the right wing bloc in the Knesset, despite resigning its coalition posts today to protest the government’s failure to advance a draft exemption bill for yeshiva students.

“We are in the coalition,” says former religious services minister Michael Malkieli. “Shas is a party that is in the right-wing bloc, built the right-wing bloc, and will maintain the right-wing bloc.”

“There was a decision to resign from the government and this morning we resigned from the committees because there was no progress and we hope that a way will be found to return,” Arutz Sheva quotes Malkieli telling a conference organized by the national-religious newspaper Makor Rishon.

Shas announced this morning that it will withdraw from all coalition roles it holds in the Knesset, giving up its chairmanships of parliamentary committees to protest the lack of a law regulating the conscription of yeshiva students.

But the party is not quitting the coalition and will not topple the government, although the move does put additional pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pass a bill regulating conscription, which has been derided by the opposition as an “evasion law” that allows ultra-Orthodox men to avoid the draft.

Shas quit the government in July over increased enforcement against draft dodgers as well as the coalition’s failure to pass legislation regulating the status of yeshiva students. Its exit from the government followed that of fellow ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism, which, unlike Shas, also left the coalition.