The Sephardic-haredi Shas party will support voting in favor in a preliminary vote on a bill proposal to disperse the Knesset on Wednesday, unless a last-minute compromise is reached regarding a bill to regulate haredi service in the IDF, Shas spokesperson Asher Medina said in an interview on Kol Berama Radio on Monday morning.

“If there is nothing serious…that we can bring before the rabbis and say, ‘Here is an achievement we can discuss, that we can put our minds to,’ then as we promised and said, we will need to vote for dispersing the Knesset,” Medina said.

The Shas spokesperson said that the party had “come a long way” in negotiations behind closed doors, and said that the negotiations were ongoing. Medina accused opponents of taking the issue as a “political hostage” and intentionally “leaving the issue open” in order to reap political benefits.

Medina acknowledged that the party did not have an interest in going to an election, but explained that the party had “reached the limit, especially out of the attempt to humiliate the haredim,” including by Likud MK Yuli Edelstein and other Likud MKs. Edelstein is the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC), where the new bill proposal, if one is presented, will be debated.

However, the blame ultimately lay at the feet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not been able to bring together a bill that was acceptable to Shas, Medina said. He noted that in recent days, Netanyahu “entered the heart of the issue” and hoped that a compromise would be found by Wednesday.

Shas MK Yinon Azoulay seen in the Knesset plenum, in Jerusalem, July 22, 2024 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
Shas MK Yinon Azoulay seen in the Knesset plenum, in Jerusalem, July 22, 2024 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
United Torah Judaism has already announced that it will support a bill to disperse the Knesset, but prior to Medina’s interview, Shas had yet to state its intentions. Even if the law to disperse the Knesset passes its preliminary reading, it would still need to go through the legislative process that requires it to pass three additional votes in the Knesset plenum. This could take weeks, and may not end by the time the Knesset heads to its summer recess at the end of July.

The FADC’s legal team has been working on formulating the text of a new bill, which will reach the committee in the coming weeks. However, this may not leave enough time for the bill proposal to pass into law by the end of the Knesset summer session in late July, in which case the current law, which requires that all eligible haredi men serve in the IDF, will continue to apply as is at least until October. In any case, if the Knesset disperses, the bill cannot proceed.

The bill proposal will likely include draft quotas from the haredi sector that will increase annually, eventually reaching 50% of each graduating class, as well as sanctions on individuals who ignore draft orders. Despite the fact that the previous legal exemption expired in June 2024, a vast majority of the approximately 24,000 draft orders to haredi men since then have been ignored. The IDF has already stated that it will not meet the goal it committed to in the High Court, of 4,800 haredi draftees in the 2024-2025 draft year, which will end on June 30.

Supporters have argued that the bill will lead to an immediate increase in the number of draftees and bring thousands more haredim into the army. Critics, however, have countered that there is no guarantee that even with new sanctions, those who receive orders with the new law in place will actually respect them; and that there is no legal justification to enable 50% of haredim to continue being exempt from service, while secular and religious-Zionist Israelis do not enjoy the same privilege.

In the meantime, closed-door negotiations continued in recent days between Edelstein, former Shas minister Ariel Atias, and Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs. The negotiations have focused on two central issues: what the package of sanctions will include, and whether or not the sanctions will apply immediately or after a “grace period.”

Potential sanctions against draft-dodgers include preventing them from leaving the country, barring them from receiving state housing discounts, removing daycare subsidies, preventing driver’s licenses, blocking state discounts on academic studies, and more.

Former Shas advisor says that Netanyahu has his back against the wall 

Former Shas advisor Golan Vaknin told 103FM that "Every party in every coalition wants the government of which it is a member to fulfill its days."

“The real issue here is Netanyahu’s chronic procrastination over the years — in everything, by the way, not just the conscription law. That’s his way of operating, and now Netanyahu has his back against the wall. He could have dealt with this," Vaknin said.

“The ultra-Orthodox parties are going arm-in-arm, even if the terminology differs between Goldknopf, Moshe Gafni, Aryeh Deri, or Meir Porush — the direction is clear. There are two very clear conventions in the ultra-Orthodox community: one, that everyone goes together; and two, that none of them wants elections. There isn’t a single ultra-Orthodox party today that wants elections. Even if Goldknopf makes noises about wanting to vote for dissolving the Knesset here and now, it doesn’t mean he wants elections. The real story is that they want Netanyahu to stop this entire saga.”

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.