Shas MK dismisses UTJ threat to torpedo government if no law exempting Haredim from IDF
‘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,’ says Avraham Betzalel
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Shas MK Avraham Betzalel on Thursday appeared to dismiss threats to bring down the government issued by fellow ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism, which has demanded the swift passage of a bill largely exempting yeshiva students from military service.
In the latest signal from Shas that the party would not support time-bound ultimatums issued by UTJ, Betzalel told Radio Kol Hai that there was no set date when the conscription law needed to be passed. Failure to pass the budget next month will trigger automatic elections.
“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 said.
The 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.”
The 2025 state budget must be passed by the end of March, or the government will automatically fall, triggering early elections.
Under pressure from his ultra-Orthodox allies, Netanyahu has repeatedly promised a quick resolution to the enlistment issue in recent months. According to Hebrew press reports, at this week’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu indicated that the budget would be passed first. In response, Goldknopf was said to have asked why he should keep his party in the government.
Despite the prime minister’s assurances, a bill dealing with the issue of enlistment is currently stuck in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, has stated that he would “only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
Asked if Shas would agree to wait until after the budget is passed next month to pass the exemption legislation, Betzalel replied that members of his party “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 added.
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.”
Shas’s messaging on the issue has been inconsistent, with Interior Minister Moshe Arbel appearing to openly break with his party’s official stance earlier this week when he 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.”
This is not the first time that Arbel has broken ranks with Shas. Last April, he stated that there was no longer a “moral” justification to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who were not studying in a yeshiva from army service.”
Arbel’s earlier comments echoed those of his fellow Shas Minister Ya’akov Margi, who told the Kikar Hashabbat website in February 2024 that members of the Haredi community not engaged in full-time Torah study should be drafted “by force.”
Crackdown on draft dodgers threatens our ‘existence’
While some members of Shas have moderated their rhetoric on the issue, United Torah Judaism has taken a harder line on the issue.
In a recording aired by Kol Hai on Thursday, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush could be heard arguing that the ultra-Orthodox draft crisis posed an existential crisis for the Haredi community.
“I did not come to speak badly about the land of Israel or about those who are at the head of the state. I’m telling you this because we don’t know where it will develop, but I think it could also develop into a real struggle for our existence here in Israel. Something like that could happen. If we reach a point where, God forbid, they want to arrest young men who are sitting and studying, removing them from their homes, removing them from the yeshivas,” he said.
And while international travel restrictions on draft dodgers can be tolerated, arrests will lead to “a struggle for existence,” said Porush. “I don’t want to use a harsher term than struggle.”
Earlier this month, The Times of Israel reported that a hotline established by Porush was advising Haredim who had received enlistment orders not to report to the IDF.
‘Shameful politics’
Radio Kol Hai also reported that Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had offered the coalition’s Haredi parties concessions on the 2025 state budget to secure their agreement for the postponement of the passage of a law regulating yeshiva students’ status vis-a-vis the military.
According to the report, the pair offered the Haredi parties a 15 percent increase in the budgets of ultra-Orthodox school networks, as well as funding for kindergarten teachers, under the government’s Ofek Hadash (New Horizon) plan.
The Haredim have long sought to become part of the program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives. However, the program is currently restricted to state schools and does not apply to independent Haredi schools, which do not teach secular subjects.
In response, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid denounced Netanyahu and Smotrich for engaging in “shameful politics.”
“Now Netanyahu and Smotrich have a new offer for the Haredim: Agree to postpone the evasion law and you will receive money, lots of money, under the table. How much money? Billions,” Lapid tweeted.
“Quite a few of the kindergartens are owned by the Goldknopf family,” Lapid wrote. “There is no limit to the corruption. They will be showered with the exact same money that could have been used to lower taxes for the middle class [whose members] serve and work.”
