‘The final deadline’: Could the IDF conscription crisis bring down Netanyahu’s government?
Without a bill shielding Haredim from the draft, the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties are weighing tactics from boycotting votes on coalition legislation to toppling the government
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"
On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held an urgent meeting with a small number of senior coalition figures, including Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, in an attempt to head off a rapidly escalating coalition crisis brought about by his ultra-Orthodox political partners’ demand that the government prevent the military conscription of their constituents.
The crisis has been building since last summer when the High Court of Justice ruled that the military exemptions for yeshiva students, which had been in place for decades, were illegal, prompting increasingly vocal demands for the passage of legislation that would reinstate these privileges despite the ongoing wars on Israel’s borders.
And while the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) parties had backed down from numerous prior threats to tank the coalition over the issue (they both supported the 2025 state budget this March rather than allow the government to fall), their relationship with Netanyahu may now be approaching a breaking point.
“I think we are at the most crucial point in terms of risk to the coalition,” Yisroel Cohen, an ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, journalist with close ties to the Haredi parties, told The Times of Israel.
Ahead of the Knesset’s April recess, the two Haredi parties again began pushing for passage of the controversial legislation, with rabbis affiliated with UTJ reportedly informing Netanyahu that they wanted to see the bill passed before the Shavuot holiday, which this year falls on June 1.
And tensions have only increased since the Knesset reconvened for its summer legislative session this week, with both Shas and UTJ immediately declaring that they would boycott votes on coalition legislation on Wednesday in protest of the government’s failure to pass a draft exemption law.
Meanwhile, UTJ lawmaker Yaakov Asher warned, in a Monday interview with the Haredi news site Kikar HaShabbat, that if the Knesset did not pass draft exemption legislation by the end of the summer session, July 27, his party would no longer be able to remain in the government.
“If this law does not pass in this session… we will have a very big problem sitting in such a government, period,” he said, adding that UTJ “cannot be part of a government” that turns Haredim into “criminals.”
Things escalated even further the next day, with the military announcing on Tuesday evening that Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had ordered the IDF Personnel Directorate to immediately provide a plan to “expand and maximize” the number of draft orders sent to young ultra-Orthodox men — enraging the Haredi community.
In response, Netanyahu on Wednesday invited Shas chairman Deri, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein to a last-ditch meeting in an attempt to arrive at a compromise regarding the long-delayed bill regulating Haredi military enlistment.
Edelstein, a member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, has long blocked the advancement of the exemption legislation through his committee, pledging that any law on the issue of Haredi service would “significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
Edelstein had announced on Tuesday that after exhaustive debate, his committee was “one step away” from drafting a new version of the law — raising Haredi concerns that he would advance a version mandating harsh sanctions on draft evaders.
The Prime Minister’s Office attempted to present Wednesday evening’s meeting in a positive light, releasing a statement claiming that “progress was noted at the meeting, and it was agreed that the discussions will continue in an attempt to bridge the gaps.”
However, leaks from the meeting published in the Hebrew press paint a different picture. Channel 12’s Amit Segal tweeted that “a furious Netanyahu threatened the ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition that he’ll go to elections,” and national broadcaster Kan reported that Deri rejected Edelstein’s proposal that the IDF begin by conscripting half of each year’s annual ultra-Orthodox draft cohort.
According to Kan, United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf, a major stakeholder, was not even invited because the other participants believed he would reject any compromise raised during the meeting.
Following the meeting, a UTJ party source launched a scathing attack on Netanyahu, telling ultra-Orthodox news site Behadrei Haredim that the premier had “forgotten that he signed [in his coalition agreements] with United Torah Judaism and Shas that the conscription law would be enacted immediately upon the formation of the government.”
The Haredim, the source added, “do not want discussions and do not want progress,” but rather the immediate passage of a law — something that has become increasingly difficult politically due to widespread public opposition to Haredi military exemptions, including within the coalition itself.
“As soon as the ultra-Orthodox parties realize that Netanyahu cannot muster a majority [to pass] the conscription law [with provisions maintaining the Haredi exemption from service], they will leave the government,” Avi Mimran, a broadcaster with the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Hai, told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. “After two years of waiting, the final deadline has arrived.”
Cohen was slightly less certain, noting that if the ultra-Orthodox parties “had better alternatives” to the Netanyahu coalition, they would probably have bolted already.
“Will they bring down the government, or will they withdraw from the coalition and support it from outside? I don’t know what to tell you, and anything can happen,” including an ongoing boycott of all coalition legislation, he said.
However, if the army sends out 60,000 enlistment orders to Haredi yeshiva students — as IDF chief Zamir appears to be demanding — and then begins actively arresting those who refuse to serve, Cohen believes that the Haredim would “leave the coalition in a second,” with Shas following United Torah Judaism’s lead.
Kan reported that during Wednesday evening’s meeting, Defense Minister Katz promised not to engage in any enforcement against those ignoring the new enlistment orders demanded by Zamir.
UTJ’s exit would not topple the government, but it would leave it with a bare 61-59 seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset. It would take the defection of both ultra-Orthodox parties to deprive the government of its Knesset majority.
The pressure is growing on the Haredim to take action and is likely to increase even further in the coming weeks, when Edelstein releases a revised enlistment bill, said Dr. Gilad Malach, an expert on Haredim at the Israel Democracy Institute.
According to Malach, so long as discussions are ongoing in Edelstein’s committee, the Haredim are able to say that they “are still working on it.” But once the draft legislation is finalized, there will be no more wiggle room.
While it is impossible to know if the coalition will collapse in the coming months or hobble along until next year, what is certain, he said, is that this crisis is “one of the main threats to the current coalition.”
The Times of Israel Community.