Netanyahu promises Haredi draft bill by month’s end, as ultra-Orthodox threaten budget

Legislation meant to renew sweeping exemptions from military service, after fierce Haredi opposition to High Court ruling ordering government to end decades-long practice

Illustrative: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a plenum session and vote on reviving the ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill at the Knesset, Jerusalem, June 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Illustrative: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a plenum session and vote on reviving the ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill at the Knesset, Jerusalem, June 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassured the ultra-Orthodox on Tuesday that his government will advance a bill facilitating sweeping exemptions for Haredi men from mandatory military service by the end of the month, according to Hebrew media reports.

Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the head of the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, reportedly threatened on Tuesday to block the passage of the 2025 budget unless a bill is passed in the next three weeks.

Failure to pass the budget would bring down the government.

According to ultra-Orthodox news site Behadrei Haredim, after members of Netanyahu’s cabinet were informed that the government would meet on October 31 to approve the state budget, Goldknopf warned that “the prime minister is aware that the budget law will not come up for discussion in the government until the enlistment law is passed.”

In June, the High Court of Justice ruled that there is no legal basis for the decades-long practice of exempting Haredi men from the military draft. The IDF then sent out draft orders to several thousand ultra-Orthodox men, which led to protests and fierce opposition from the religious and political leadership of the ultra-Orthodox.

The bill that seeks to regulate the issue is currently stuck in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, has said that it will only pass if lawmakers can reach a “broad consensus” on the matter.

Illustrative: Ultra-Orthodox Jews clash with police during a protest against the drafting of Haredi yeshiva students to the IDF, outside the Mihve Alon military base, in northern Israel, August 14, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Addressing a conference this week, Edelstein said that whatever bill his committee passes would not fully satisfy either side but would be a “good law” that would help mobilize additional necessary manpower for the IDF.

Netanyahu reportedly promised Goldknopf in September that he would fast-track the legislation when the Knesset reconvenes at the end of this month, following a previous ultra-Orthodox threat not to support the budget.

The opposition responded on Tuesday with anger to the plan to advance the legislation in the midst of war, with MK Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beytenu seething that while “IDF soldiers and reservists are fighting in Gaza, Lebanon and Judea and Samaria, the government continues to promote the exemption law. ”

“Recruitment for all is not only a matter of equality, but an existential and necessary need for the security of the state. Everyone must lend a shoulder and [help] carry the burden,” Liberman added in a post to X.

Yair Golan, the chairman of The Democrats, asked on X if “the lives of our children are worth less? For them the answer is yes.”

Efforts to pass the bill have become broadly unpopular since the start of the war in Gaza, with the army facing persistent manpower shortages and reservists being called up repeatedly. Members of Netanyahu’s coalition including some in his Likud party have warned they will not back any overly sweeping proposal.

Illustrative: Ultra-Orthodox protesters decry the drafting of Haredi men to the army, outside the IDF recruitment center at Tel Hashomer, central Israel, August 6, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich met with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Tuesday to prepare the 2025 state budget.

Earlier this month, Smotrich presented an initial state budget framework for 2025 based on a deficit target of up to 4 percent of gross domestic product, which will necessitate NIS 35 billion ($9.5 billion) in spending adjustments to finance the costs of the ongoing war.

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