Netanyahu’s coalition teeters as ultra-Orthodox allies threaten to dissolve parliament

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is bracing for a crunch vote on Wednesday, as ultra-Orthodox allies threaten to back a preliminary motion to dissolve parliament unless the government passes legislation sparing religious students from military service.

Coalition leaders have held multiple rounds of talks in recent days in an effort to resolve the dispute over the decades-old exemption. It is one of the most divisive issues in Israeli politics, and has become more contentious as the war with Hamas drags into its 21st month.

Government officials still hope a deal can be reached, and Israeli media reported on Tuesday that an effort was under way to delay the dissolution vote by a week. If the motion passes, it will not automatically bring down Netanyahu’s government, as bills must be voted on four times before becoming law.

But the two ultra-Orthodox — or Haredi — parties in Netanyahu’s coalition have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress on the exemption, which Israel’s top court deemed unconstitutional in 2017. Since then, successive governments have tried and failed to pass new legislation.

The smaller of the two parties, United Torah Judaism, announced last week that it would vote to dissolve parliament unless a deal was reached. On Monday, its bigger partner Shas, warned it would follow suit if nothing changed before Wednesday’s vote.

“We are not happy about bringing down a rightwing government, but we have reached a kind of breaking point,” Shas spokesman Asher Medina told Israeli public radio. “If there is no last-minute solution, Shas will vote on Wednesday in favour of the dissolution of the Knesset.”

Officials say holding the votes needed to dissolve parliament could take anything from a week to months.

In an effort to overload the Knesset’s agenda for Wednesday and buy time, the coalition has put forward dozens of bills on other topics. Netanyahu’s Likud party also controls the committee that will determine how fast the dissolution bill is advanced should it pass the preliminary reading.

If the government could avoid holding the final vote on the bill before the parliamentary session ends in July, it would be safe until the next session begins in the autumn, as governments cannot be toppled when parliament is not sitting.

“The goal is to buy time and postpone as much as possible,” said a person familiar with the situation. “If [Netanyahu] can get to the summer break, he will have three months of quiet to figure things out.”

Opposition officials have also said they could pull the dissolution bill if it looks unlikely to pass, since a defeat would mean it could not be resubmitted for another six months.

The question of ultra-Orthodox conscription has long been one of the key faultlines in Netanyahu’s coalition, which also includes lawmakers who are adamant that the exemption should be ended.

However, analysts say it would be a gamble for the Haredi parties to topple the government over the issue, since opinion polls suggest fresh elections could lead to a new government being formed without them.

The exemption stems from a 1948 deal between Israel’s founder David Ben-Gurion and the ultra-Orthodox community, which exempted 400 young Haredi men from military service if they instead enrolled in a yeshiva, or religious school.

But the arrangement — and state subsidies for yeshiva students — have become a source of deep frustration for the rest of Jewish Israeli society, with the number of ultra-Orthodox exempted soaring to more than 80,000, partly because of the rapid growth of the Haredi population.