Members of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) party United Torah Judaism threatened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently that they would propose a bill to disperse the Knesset if a bill to exempt the majority of haredi men from IDF service does not pass prior to the passing of the 2025 budget, the central haredi newspaper Mishpacha reported on Thursday.
According to the report, Motti Babchik, UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf’s chief of staff passed a message in recent days to the Prime Minister’s Office that if the issue was not solved, Netanyahu would not “enjoy the fruits” of the election of US President-elect Donald Trump, and would watch “via screens” as former prime ministers “Bennett and Lapid clap at the signing ceremony of a peace deal with Saudi Arabia.”
UTJ officials also said, according to the report, that “at the end of the day,” the prime minister will receive two bill proposals – one of an “agreed upon” draft bill and a bill to disperse the Knesset. There will be “no other choice” but to decide between them, they said, according to the report.
Two sources in United Torah Judaism denied the report. According to one of them, there is a growing sense of urgency, but the feeling in the party is that, at the moment, there is no concrete proposal on the table to disperse the Knesset. Babchik did not respond to a query on the matter.
Budget majority
Dispersing the Knesset leads automatically to an election. However, if the budget does not pass by March 1, the Knesset disperses as well, and a bill may therefore be unnecessary for the haredi parties to topple the government. Without the haredi parties’ support, the budget would not have a majority.
According to a source, the two factions that make up UTJ – the Lithuanian Degel Hatorah and hassidic Agudat Yisrael parties – have differing views. Degel Hatorah has not threatened to resign from senior positions and/or quit the coalition and is taking a quieter approach, trying to come to agreements with defense officials behind the scenes. According to the source, Agudat Yisrael is closer to making a public move on the matter.
The source added that there are also differences of opinion within Agudat Yisrael. The spiritual leader of Goldknopf’s Gerrer Hassidism is closer to ordering him to resign than the hassidic Council of Torah Sages, which represents most of the other hassidic groups, is to ordering the resignation of its representative in the government, Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Tradition Minister Meir Porush.
It remains unclear whether or not Agudat Yisrael makes a collective decision on the matter and, even if so, whether or not they suffice with a resignation from the government and refrain from exiting the coalition and dispersing the Knesset.
The next deadline on the matter will come at the end of January when the 2025 state budget is expected to pass into law. If the issue is not resolved by then, the following major hurdle will be at the end of February when, according to a recent High Court ruling, yeshiva students of military age will no longer be eligible for state-funded daycare for children younger than age three.