Netanyahu’s challenges in the occupied territories; Bibi’s struggle to maintain power.
According to Al Jazeera, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet must resolve sensitive issues shortly, otherwise, the cabinet will automatically fall, and early elections will be held.
Haredi’s Complex Challenge for Netanyahu
On January 29, Shas Party Chairman Aryeh Deri warned Netanyahu’s cabinet that if a law to exempt Haredi members from conscription is not passed, Haredi parties will leave the cabinet.
Shas Knesset member Eriz Malol repeated the same threats in an interview with Israeli Channel 11 TV, emphasizing that if the bill to exempt Haredi members from conscription is not passed, Netanyahu’s cabinet will no longer have a majority vote.
The Israeli Knesset member said that without Shas, Netanyahu would not have the votes needed to approve the budget. The Torah Judaism Union party will also not vote on the budget, and the Jewish Power party, led by Itamar Ben-Governor, is currently in the opposition. This is not a threat, but a final warning.
Despite these harsh statements by the Haredi leaders, major differences emerged between the Torah Judaism Union party and the Shas party during their leaders’ meeting with Netanyahu, and Netanyahu promised them that he would advance the law exempting Haredis from compulsory military service and pass it.
“Yitzhak Goldenkoff,” the Israeli cabinet’s housing minister and the head of the Torah Judaism Union party, told Netanyahu: “The law exempting Haredis from compulsory military service must be passed. You have promised us many times before, and our condition is that the Jewish military service law be passed.”
However, the head of the Shas party backed down from his position and announced his support for Netanyahu. According to sources who were present at the meeting of the leaders of the aforementioned parties with Netanyahu, Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri said that we are now at war and we should not fuel the differences.
Netanyahu’s efforts to buy time
The Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom reported that Netanyahu is looking to buy time and prolong the crisis in response to this position of the Haredis. He expects Yuli Edelstein, the head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, to submit a draft law exempting Haredis from compulsory military service by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.
The Israeli economic newspaper Marker announced that the Haredi evasion law was discussed at the meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and head of the Religious Zionism party are strongly opposed to exempting Haredis from compulsory military service, and Itamar Ben-Governor also agrees with him on this issue. The head of the Finance Ministry’s budget department also called for immediate sanctions against Haredis who evade military service in the Knesset session.
This is despite the pressure on Haredis continuing, and according to a monthly survey by the Jewish Nation Policy Institute, published by the Hebrew newspaper Ma’ariv last February, four out of 10 Israelis are angry about Haredis’ refusal to serve in the military.