A new threat by Agudat Yisrael, the hassidic faction of the haredi United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, to jeopardize a tax bill that the government must pass on Tuesday, came because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not yet delivered his promise that the government will come up with a plan to regulate haredi IDF service, a spokesperson for party leader, Housing Minister YIzhak Goldknopf, said on Monday.
Defense Minister Israel Katz (Likud) last week presented to some MKs from his party a list of principles for new legislation, according to which the IDF will gradually increase haredi draft numbers, and reach 50% of each annual cohort within seven years. The plan also included institutional sanctions on yeshivot that did not meet draft quotas, as well as personal sanctions on haredi men who ignore draft orders.However, the plan has yet to receive government approval, and is unlikely to pass legal review, since it still exempts an unequally large section of haredim from IDF service.
Furthermore, the Attorney-General’s Office opined in a filing to the High Court of Justice in recent days that the government’s attempt to skip some legislative procedures by reviving a bill proposed by the previous government in 2022 was illegal.If the A-G’s opinion is accepted by the High Court, the government must begin the legislative process from scratch, and will likely significantly lengthen the process.
The coalition has 68 members out of the 120 Members of Knesset. If Otzma Yehudit’s six MKs and Agudat Yisrael’s three MKs vote against the bill, the coalition will no longer have a majority.However, it remains unclear whether the three MKs will act on the threat, which was first reported in the Agudat Yisrael party-affiliated Hamodia newspaper, and not officially announced by a party member.Goldknopf himself is not a member of Knesset. The three MKs – Yisrael Eichler, Yaakov Tessler, and Moshe Roth – all represent different Hassidic groups and answer to different rabbis. Roth said he would “probably” follow through with the threat, and similar statements were reportedly made by Tessler and Eichler.
Agudat Yisrael threat
The threat by Agudat Yisrael bears special weigh, since if the tax bill does not pass by the end of the calendar year at midnight on Tuesday, the government will find itself in an approximately NIS 13 billion gap in expected national income for 2025.This will force the government to significantly alter its 2025 budget proposal and impose a series of additional budget cuts or increase the budget deficit, both of which will negatively affect Israel’s economy. The budget must pass by the end of March, or else the government falls.The threats also came a day after Netanyahu emerged from prostate removal surgery, further complicating the situation.The decades-long legal exemption of military-aged haredi men permanently expired in June. According to the law, all haredi men who reach the age of 18 must enlist for IDF service like the rest of Israel’s Jewish citizens.However, the IDF has been slow to pick up the pace of sending draft orders to haredi men. In addition, out of the thousands of orders sent out, very few respected the orders and showed up for service.The investment firm BDO estimated in a recent report commissioned by civil religious-freedom movement Israel Hofsheet that failing to draft ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF cost the country NIS 8.5 billion in 2024, due to the increased burden on reservists.