The Shas Party announced Thursday that it is resigning from all coalition positions it holds in the Knesset, in protest of the government’s continuing failure to advance legislation regulating the non-conscription into the Israel Defense Forces of Haredi yeshivah students.
The move came some three months after the party, which has 11 Knesset members and represents the Jewish state’s Sephardi ultra-Orthodox population, formally exited the government, with its lawmakers resigning from five ministerial posts.
Shas said the decision to also quit coalition posts, which came following a directive by its Council of Torah Sages, was taken due to the failure to bring a draft law to the Knesset by the opening of the legislature’s winter session, which kicked off on Monday.
The party said it would “continue to fight” against what it denounced as a “cruel campaign against yeshivah students,” “who study Torah day and night for the sake of the entire nation and for the success of its soldiers.
“When the status of the yeshivah students is resolved, Shas will return to its positions in the government and the Knesset,” the statement added.
Israel’s Channel 12 News cited sources in the office of Likud Party lawmaker Boaz Bismuth, who chairs the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, as calling the step “surprising and unnecessary.
“Threats at a stage when there’s already an agreed and developing draft law do not help—they may actually delay the law instead of advancing it,” the sources told the broadcaster.
Lawmakers returned from their three-month recess on Monday, kicking off the parliamentary winter session with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition still lacking a majority.
The winter session is expected to be stormy, with exempting Haredim from IDF service potentially the most disruptive issue for the coalition.
Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, Shas and United Torah Judaism (seven Knesset members), exited the government in July over the issue, leaving the prime minister’s coalition without a majority in parliament.
However, the ultra-Orthodox parties have helped Netanyahu pass some legislation over the past months to avoid triggering an early election.
Netanyahu in his speech at the opening ceremony on Monday said that his government would bring forward legislation to enlist 10,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshivah students within two years, calling the proposal “a genuine revolution.
“We have the example of the Hasmonean Brigade,” he said. “These bold fighters enlisted in the IDF as Haredim and will be discharged as Haredim, and we will add more tracks that will make this possible.”
This week, IDF Military Police arrested several ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers, sparking large-scale protests by the Haredi community.
