Yesh Atid, Blue and White submit bills to dissolve Knesset ahead of 2026 budget vote

By Sam Sokol 28 January 2026, 1:21 pm

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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"

Ahead of the first reading of the 2026 state budget today, opposition parties including Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and MK Benny Gantz’s Blue and White have submitted multiple bills to dissolve the 25th Knesset.

A previous bill to dissolve the Knesset failed last summer after the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Degel Hatorah factions reached a compromise, which has since failed, with then-Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein over the enlistment of yeshiva students.

Under parliamentary rules, because the legislation was defeated, lawmakers had to wait six months to bring another Knesset dissolution bill to a vote.

The coalition is negotiating with the Haredi factions over the enlistment issue, with Shas and United Torah Judaism threatening not to support a vote on the 2026 budget today unless they receive concessions on the final draft of the draft exemption bill being revised by current Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth.

The vote on the budget bill was initially supposed to be held on Monday but was delayed due to the political crisis.

According to Channel 12, earlier this week Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if the budget didn’t pass its first reading on Monday, the Knesset should be dissolved. In response, Lapid tweeted: “Smotrich, just a reminder, the bill I submitted to disperse the Knesset will come up to the plenum next Wednesday.”

Speaking with The Times of Israel, a spokesman for Lapid says that the bills are “a way to apply pressure” and that “if there is no majority, of course we will remove it.”

Bills to dissolve the Knesset are regularly added to the Knesset agenda and then removed before a vote due to lack of support.

In a statement, Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party announces that it is removing all of its bills from the plenum today in response to “the attempt to stall the budget vote,” which has been placed at the end of today’s lengthy plenum agenda.

Gantz also calls on the other opposition party leaders to remove their proposals, with his party explaining that their goal was to “not allow representatives of the ultra-Orthodox parties and Likud time to negotiate.”