Shas quits its coalition posts to protest failure to legislate Haredi draft exemption

The ultra-Orthodox Shas party announced on Thursday 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.

“In accordance with the directive of the Council of Torah Scholars… according to which the government must bring to a vote the law to regulate the status of yeshiva students no later than the opening of the winter session of the Knesset — which unfortunately has not yet been implemented — Shas announces its withdrawal from its coalition roles in the Knesset,” the party said in a statement.

In accordance with the announcement, Shas MKs Yossi Taib and Yoni Meshriki will give up their positions on the Education and Health committees, while Michael Malkieli will relinquish the chair of the Special Committee for Bridging Social Gaps in the Periphery.

Despite this, 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 military conscription bill, which has been derided by the opposition as the “evasion law.”

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The Israel Defense Forces has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has pushed to pass a law keeping its constituency out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

In its statement on Thursday, Shas pledged to “continue to lead the struggle against the political and cruel persecution campaign directed against students of the holy yeshivas, who study Torah day and night for the sake of all Israel and for the success of the soldiers,” adding that “when the status of yeshiva students is resolved, Shas will return to its positions in the government and the Knesset.”

In the meantime, it will “operate in full coordination with the Haredi factions and will continuously consult with the Council of Torah Sages regarding its position on votes in the Knesset plenum,” the statement continued, implying that Shas will continue this summer’s boycott of coalition bills.

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.

In a statement at the time, the party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages said that it had instructed the party’s lawmakers to enact a law regulating the military conscription of Haredi young men “as soon as possible and no later than the opening of the Knesset winter session, so that it will be possible to maintain the existence of the government and the coalition partnership.”

However, while recent reports indicated that the party was eyeing a return to the government, the Knesset reconvened this week without such legislation on the table.

On Tuesday evening, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth told Channel 14 that a revised draft of the government’s long-delayed bill would be presented to lawmakers next week, with the goal of sending it to the plenum for its final two readings in December.

The previous day, Bismuth had announced that he was postponing a series of scheduled discussions of the bill because his committee’s legal adviser required additional time to prepare a draft of the legislation based on a document of principles he had submitted last week.

According to Hebrew-language news reports, the document stipulates that within five years, 50 percent of the annual Haredi draft cohort will be conscripted, and the age of exemption will remain at 26. Government funding for yeshivas will only be cut if they fail to meet army enlistment quotas after a year, and sanctions on individuals who do not serve in the army will only go into effect after two years if the overall enlistment goal is not met.

Moreover, those sanctioned will not lose their driver’s licenses, although restrictions on issuing licenses to draft evaders will apply.

In what many see as an attempt to secure support for Bismuth’s bill, and to pave the way for Shas’s return, the Likud party decided on Wednesday evening to boot former chairman Yuli Edelstein from the committee altogether.

Lawmakers on Wednesday also voted down a package of bills from opposition MKs that would financially penalize yeshiva students who avoid military service.