Wartime Knesset’s first bill will be to push back municipal elections until January
Judicial overhaul and ultra-Orthodox military deferments, initially expected to be the political battles of the Knesset’s winter session, are postponed until the end of hostilities
Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel
Israel’s parliament opens for its winter legislative session on Monday, 10 days after Hamas mounted the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and amid the ensuing war between Israel and terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.
In line with agreements signed to form Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency wartime cabinet, the Knesset will only advance critical or war-related legislation during the hostilities, starting with a bill to postpone nationwide municipal elections from October 31 to January.
Wartime politics are a paradigm shift from the domestically contentious battles Netanyahu’s coalition had been gearing up to fight. Before Hamas launched its devastating surprise attack, which killed over 1,300, the vast majority of them civilians, Israel’s most pressing issue seemed to be the internecine struggle over the distribution of public power and sharing the burden of serving in the military.
But the coalition’s controversial and fiercely contested push to neuter judicial powers, which captivated Israel’s public sphere for nine straight months, was quickly brushed aside by the entry of the National Unity opposition party into the wartime cabinet.
In order to secure the deal, National Unity chief Benny Gantz and Netanyahu committed to freezing all non-consensus, non-war-related and non-emergency legislation, including bills related to the government’s judicial overhaul package.
Just as pressing as the planned changes to the judiciary was settling the issue of whether to continue to exempt full-time religious scholars from the Israel Defense Forces’ mandatory draft.
Ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition had already been pushing for a speedy resolution to the issue, seeking legislation that would designate Torah study as a national priority on par with military service.
The nation’s top court has twice struck down legislation granting sweeping ultra-Orthodox military exemptions, and the government’s timeline for amending legislation on the matter expired over the summer. The Defense Ministry is currently operating under a cabinet decision to not enlist ultra-Orthodox men who have obtained deferrals, even though there is no valid statuary basis for doing so.
Those two fights will be put on the back burner, as Israel’s political attention rapidly and comprehensively shifts to the war effort in the wake of Hamas’s brutal onslaught.
Israel, the IDF spokesman said on Saturday, is preparing for a ground and marine operation against Gaza, in addition to its upwards of 3,000 air raids on the Hamas-held enclave since October 7.
Municipal elections are held nationwide once every five years, and two weeks before the scheduled 2023 contest, the Knesset is set to vote on Monday on the first reading of a bill to push off the election until January.
With about 300,000 Israelis called to reserve duty to support the war effort, and city halls operating to support citizens’ safety and normalcy during the hostilities, the election deferment has caused few ripples in a society rediscovering its unity after one of its most divisive years.
In addition to a bill to postpone elections, which will require a further two readings before becoming law, the plenum is expected to vote on waste management measures and additional, as-of-yet unspecified, measures related to the war, according to a message sent to Likud lawmakers on Sunday evening.
Netanyahu, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, and President Isaac Herzog are scheduled to deliver remarks to the Knesset floor on Monday, ahead of legislative voting.
