Netanyahu government defeats bill to dissolve parliament, staving off snap elections

Israel’s coalition overnight Thursday defeated a vote to dissolve the Knesset after the coalition reached a deal with the ultra-Orthodox parties on a proposal to regulate the military draft of haredi men.

Sixty-one out of the Israeli parliament’s 120 lawmakers, including most of the haredi members, voted against the dissolution, which could have collapsed the government and paved the way for early elections.

The opposition’s failure to advance the dissolution bill means that the legislation cannot be re-introduced for six months, bringing stability to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.

After Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein confirmed that a compromise had been reached with Degel HaTorah, which is part of the United Torah Judaism Party, it issued a joint statement with the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas Party.

“Following extended discussions conducted by our representatives with the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, understandings were reached regarding the principles of a law to preserve the status of yeshivah students,” the two parties stated.

The statement called on opposition leaders to “postpone their proposed legislation to dissolve the Knesset to next week,” warning that “if the proposal is not postponed, we will vote against the dissolution.”

The opposition parties then proceeded to put the dissolution bill to a vote, with only two coalition lawmakers from within United Torah Judaism’s Agudat Yisrael faction voting with the opposition.

Hours after the dissolution was defeated on Thursday, Construction and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, who heads United Torah Judaism and led moves against the coalition’s plans to conscript his constituents, announced he would be resigning from his position in the government.

According to Hebrew media reports, the deal reached with Edelstein calls for a raft of personal sanctions against draft dodgers, including suspension of drivers’ licenses and bans on leaving the country.

Should the Israel Defense Forces be unable to reach its enlistment targets in the coming two years, further sanctions would take effect.

Netanyahu’s governing coalition appeared stable until a few months ago, when Jerusalem’s Supreme Court ruled that the right-wing and religious government must conscript the ultra-Orthodox populace.

As a result of the court’s move, the haredi parties, which for years made up the most stable element of the government, became its weakest link.

Ultra-Orthodox men have received near-blanket exemptions from IDF service in what started as an exemption for about 400 Torah scholars at the state’s establishment. The haredi population has since exploded.

For years, the issue has caused bitterness within the Jewish state’s larger society, most of whose members serve in the Israel Defense Forces. The matter grew still more divisive after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.

Although the number of haredi men studying in yeshivas and eligible for IDF service is estimated at between 63,000 and 66,000, since Oct. 7, only 1,140 haredim have enlisted, of whom 600 were over the age of 26 and thus exempt for the draft, according to March 2024 IDF figures.