The end was postponed, and Netanyahu’s government coalition gained more time, just as Haridim and Netanyahu wanted. The draft law resolving the Knesset fell after the Shass and Dealjehra Party reached preliminary understandings with Edlstein, head of the Knesset Foreign and Security Committee. The crisis led to a division in the Agdis of Israel, one of the components of “Yahdout Hatura”, after two of its members voted, Jacob Tesler and Mushier Roth, in favor of the dissolution of the Knesset, while one member, Israel Eykler, opposed it.
The deal was concluded through an agreement on principles after conflict, deliberations and long tension, so it was tried without resolving the Knesset, and the crisis was practically transferred to a later time. The result seemed to be that Netanyahu is the biggest winner in this conflict after he played long on the division of Haridim on the one hand, and the division of Likuds on the other hand.
The conflict at its climax was between the Haredi and the head of the Likud Foreign and Security Committee, Juli Edlinstein, and the two sides represented the opposite parties in the position between the state and the group on an existential issue, which is “sharing the burdens” in a balanced manner. While the recruitment law was the focus of conflict, the no less important issue was the budgets allocated to the Harid institutions, which made the Harid division in which a lifeline of the Netanyahu coalition is a lifeline.
The recent crisis exploded after it became clear to the Haridi parties that Netanyahu would not move to pass a law of recruitment in their favor before being crowded in the corner. According to videos of a meeting between Netanyahu and the senior rabbis, Netanyahu admitted that he had sacked both the Minister of Defense and the former Chief of Staff to facilitate the task of approving the recruitment law that satisfies them, but he has not yet succeeded and is required to give him more time.
However, the Haridim had set a final date for the approval of the law, which is the feast of the Torah that happened last week. According to what was mentioned by the Haredi leaders, the goal was to prevent Netanyahu from passing the summer cycle of the Knesset without approving the recruitment law in its first reading. Of course, the goal was not actually resolving the Knesset, but rather forced Netanyahu and the Likud to pass the law.
New elections may be extremely bad for the Haredi parties, especially since the war has exacerbated the polarization of the supporters of the Haridim and its opponents. The conviction is firmly established by the Haredim that what they can get from the Netanyahu government will be much better than they will get from any other coalition.
Thus, during the Easter holiday, members of the “Yahdout Hatura” party began boycotting the vote at the Knesset General Authority on Wednesday, with the aim of completing the draft of an agreed law. Shas soon joined the boycott, prompting the coalition to withdraw bills so that he was not defeated by the opposition. Al -Haidim Province continued to vote in the General Assembly on Wednesday for many weeks, and a state of “overcrowding” has arisen due to dozens of laws offered by the coalition members, which none of which was approved.
Netanyahu did not overlook the Haridim to the extent that the anger of their senior rabbis, who refused even to meet him or respond to his calls. What exacerbated the matter was the lack of cooperation of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Edlstein, and his presentation of a draft recruitment law that includes severe individual penalties, which raised the surprise of the members of the Knesset Haredim. As a result, the Haridim, led by Rabbi Ghor, began calling for the solution of the Knesset.
Idlstein did not respond to the efforts of his party’s leaders to soften the severity of the sanctions, which caused him very anger inside the Likud, as he was accused of falling the government. The government’s legal advisor, Ghali Bahraf Mayara, joined the battle, and announced that the Israeli army leadership should send calls for all the Haridim who meet the conditions of compulsory military service, which number 54 thousand.
Under the law, the army should send summons orders to serve for every 28 -year -old, a young man, starting in early July. It also announced that no law can be implemented without imposing severe penalties on its violators.
This is what made the Haredim climb from their accent and their pressure to pass the law, taking advantage of the existence of bills for the dissolution of the Knesset. It seems that the formula of agreement reached at the last minute before voting on the Knesset solution was closer to a compromise, preventing strict penalties on all young Haridim on the one hand, and giving way for a month to pass it and start its negation.
The Knesset’s judicial advisor and the Knesset’s judicial consultant agreed to this agreement, which prompted both Rabbi Dove Landau and Rabbi Moshe Hill Hersh to the Fatwa not to vote in the Knesset Law. According to the Convention on this Principles, there are three stages of penalties that are applied to the Haridim who do not join the army, as the penalties are graded from preventing them from obtaining cars driving licenses, working in certain jobs, or their children enjoy discounts in nurseries and kindergarten, to prevent discounts from national insurance fees. A numerical increase in the recruitment of Haridim was also decided up to 50% within five years.
Thus, the new law is scheduled to start discussing the Foreign and Security Committee soon, to present it next week to the Knesset. In any case, this crisis ended with Netanyahu and his coalition to obtain a guarantee not to submit another draft law to dissolve the Knesset within six months, according to what the law requires.
The roots of the crisis
The problem of the recruitment of Haridim is one of the most dangerous problems facing the Hebrew state, especially since the mid -seventies when things began to be decided in favor of the right -wing and its dominance on the political arena. Among the reasons for this assignment were the growing strength of both the traditional and Bahraini religious right on the one hand, and the national right on the other hand, and the strengthening of the internal alliance between them.
The roots of the crisis are due to the emergence of the Hebrew state, and even to the deliberations that preceded it at the United Nations on division. Among the requirements of the Hebrew state was to satisfy the Haraid, and to secure their freedom to practice their rituals. Also, the secular leadership of Zionism was tending to avoid quarrels with “Hama al -Din” because it was based on the religious dimension in consolidating the justification of their settlement of the land and declaring the Jewish state.
Thus, the first prime minister of Israel after its announcement, David bin Gurion, as well as defense minister, issued an exemption for Jewish religious school students from recruitment in the army, using a clause in the Military Service Law allowing the defense minister to do so. Religious school students in 1948 were no more than a few hundred. The situation remained in this case for about thirty years, until the most important political coup in the history of Israel occurred by defeating the labor movement, and the formation of Menachem Begin’s first government headed by the Likud in 1977.
The Bign government has canceled restrictions on the number of religious school students who deserve to be exempted, giving way to the growing phenomenon of military service for religious reasons. Yesterday, a few hundred, rapidly turned into exempting several thousand, before doing tens of thousands currently become, and it is known as the problem of “sharing the burdens of military service.”
Increased objections
In 1998, the Supreme Court, after a petition submitted by several parties, decided that the Minister of Defense had no legal authority to grant religious school students an exemption from service, and demanded the enactment of a suitable law that regulates this matter. Therefore, the “Tal Tal Law” was enacted to regulate the postponement of the service of religious school students, which soon appeared in its inability, and it was finally canceled by the Supreme Court in 2012.
In 2014, the Security Service Law was amended, as numerical targets were defined annually to recruit religious school students. But the Netanyahu government in 2015, in which the Haridi parties participated, turned the situation upside down by enacting another amendment, canceling the sanctions included in the law, and continued to exempt without achieving the scheduled numerical increases prescribed.
In 2017, the Supreme Court decided that the amended exemption law harms constitutional rights to those who perform military service, and therefore must be canceled. Since then, the state has repeatedly asked the court to extend the law until a new law is enacted. The validity of the amended law has ended in the summer of 2023 under the age of alternative law.
The situation could have continued, had it not been for the repeated appeals before the Supreme Court against the continued exemption of Haridim from military service. In the last year, the Supreme Court acknowledged that, in light of the end of the law, the state can no longer exempt the Haredi from recruitment, and it can no longer finance religious schools whose students have not obtained the exemption.
Thus, after the issuance of this ruling, the army became obligated to send recruitment orders to religious school students, and began to do this on a limited scale. The army has sent nearly twenty thousand recruitment orders to Haridim since then, but only a few hundred have complied with this.
After the army began sending recruitment orders to the Haridim youth, the Haredi parties asked Netanyahu to enact a law that regulates the exemption of religious school students from service in the army. The deadline set by the leaders of the Haredim before Netanyahu was the feast of the Torah, in which thousands of religious school students became evading service, and at risk of arrest.
Netanyahu was unable to fulfill his promise to pass the law, nor was he able to persuade the leaders of the Haredi to care and postpone their threats to solve the Knesset. Thus, the most dangerous coalition crisis arose that would have fallen into the Netanyahu government, had it not been for the success of the games and temporarily overcoming the crisis by dropping the draft law that resolved the Knesset, which gave the Netanyahu government the opportunity to survive at least six other months, according to the law.
disappointment
The opposition parties were very disappointed as a result of Haridim’s retreat from voting along with the solution of the Knesset. The leader of Shas, Aryeh Deri, played a central role in this result, and thus formed the religious protective shield for Netanyahu over the years.
Because of the accumulation of crises, the opposition united this time with the hope that Netanyahu and his government coalition were overthrown, but the result was almost clear to everyone who knows the style and behavior of the Harid parties. She has always been pragmatic, fought for its interests, and calculates a thousand accounts for every possible change.
It seems that she has reached an inevitable conclusion, which is that she must accelerate to conclude an agreement that reduces harm to it, and the lack of adventure with new elections that may be she and the greatest losing national right.
The opinions in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al -Jazeera.