Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is troubled by the fact that when the Knesset recess ends on October 15, the coalition will be compelled to pass a Haredi draft bill, which would invite the wrath of thousands in Israel’s city streets and highways. The PM is also certain at this time that he won’t be able to both absolve thousands of haredi recruits from service and continue with the judicial reform at the same time. What to do, what to do?
And so, on Sunday, Netanyahu demanded that the UTJ Haredi party give up the override clause they were planning to attach to the new draft bill, which would allow the coalition to resubmit it should the Supreme Court in its wisdom choose to kill it.
Needless to say, the folks at UTJ, Hasidim and Lithuanians alike, were not happy and said as much. In response, on Tuesday morning, Shas Chairman MK Aryeh Deri said on Reshet Bet Radio that UTJ is engaging in “unnecessary talk that could harm the bill’s approval.”
Deri was responding to a UTJ official who told Reshet Bet on Monday that along with the draft law, the party would insist on enshrining it in Basic Law: Torah Study, or include an override clause. The same source added that UTJ MKs “will no longer vote in support of a single comma of the judicial reform” without a draft bill, and won’t accept postponements.
It appears that Netanyahu and the Likud Party are simply not looking forward to yet another round of mass protests and anarchistic sabotage of law and order all over Israel, complete with reservists dropping out of service in crucial units of the IDF. They’ve become a battered wife willing to do anything to avoid the next beating. And now that the beatings are starting to come from within, and they are as relentless if not more so, being in charge is just not as much fun as it used to be.
Section 90 of the coalition agreement between Likud שמג UTJ states that the Basic Law: Torah Study would be completed before the 2023 budget is passed. So far, the budget was passed, but the promised law wasn’t.
This basic law is expected to contain two sections: a statement saying Torah study is a fundamental value in the heritage of the Jewish people; and a section regarding the application of the law, according to which those who devote themselves to Torah learning for an extended time will earn the same rights as those who serve in the army. It will probably state this less bluntly but will mean the same in terms of Torah learners’ qualification for a long list of government benefits that today go only to soldiers and veterans.
In short, the new law equates yeshiva students with IDF soldiers, exempting them from military service.
Won’t the Supreme Court revoke such a law before the glue pasting its pages together is dry? You can bet your bottom shekel it would. This is why UTJ is insisting on accompanying it with an override clause which empowers the Knesset to enter a few changes and submit it again – wash, rinse, repeat.
Now it appears that even the UTJ’s natural ally in the coalition, Shas, is not prepared to slide down this slope.
Brace yourselves, oh people of Israel who thought they were going to have a rosy, fully right-wing government for the next four years. It may not survive through its first birthday, November 1.
