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Monday, February 9, 2026
Tibi says Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al will vote against Haredi draft exemption bill
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAriela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.
Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi tells The Times of Israel that his party will vote against the government’s draft exemption bill for yeshiva students, amid speculation that the Arab-majority party may support or abstain from the vote in exchange for concessions from the coalition.
“Hadash-Ta’al will vote against the draft bill,” says Tibi, speaking to the press before a faction meeting at the Knesset.
“We are interested in shortening the life of the government and doing anything that will destabilize the coalition. This is a law that this coalition is built on, and therefore, we will vote against it,” he continues.
Asked by The Times of Israel whether the party has received offers from the coalition to back the bill in exchange for a quid pro quo, Tibi does not confirm whether any such proposals have been made, but ambiguously says that he asks “the coalition not to contact us on this issue,” and repeats that the party will vote against the bill.
Amid intense debate over the coalition’s Haredi draft exemption bill, every vote counts.
How Hadash-Ta’al, which holds five seats in the Knesset, votes or whether it abstains could be decisive for the bill’s passage.
The battle over the bill is coming down to the wire as the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party remains split, with its Degel Hatorah faction saying it will back the bill, while Agudat Yisrael will not.
Additionally, several coalition lawmakers, including members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s party, have also voiced strong opposition to the bill and have said that they will not support it in its current form.
The Times of Israel Community.