As debate over Chareidi conscription intensifies, Shas has made clear it will not back the 2026 state budget unless the coalition first advances legislation formalizing exemptions and regulation for Chareidi enlistment. Party spokesman Asher Medina issued the warning on Sunday, signaling a move that could topple Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government if carried through.
With the March 31 deadline for passing the budget looming, the 11 Knesset seats held by Shas are pivotal. Failure to approve the budget on time would automatically dissolve the Knesset and send the country to early elections, giving the party significant leverage in coalition negotiations.
Speaking to Radio Kol Barama, Medina framed the proposed law as a defining issue for the Chareidi public. “From the perspective of the Chareidi public, the draft law is as far-reaching as one could possibly imagine. With God’s help, we will support the law because it is the only thing that will save the world of Torah,” he said. He added pointedly that “the only thing that will stop the arrests is not demonstrations, but legislation.”
For roughly a year and a half, Chareidi leaders have pressed for a statutory arrangement keeping full-time yeshiva students out of the Israel Defense Forces, following a High Court ruling that invalidated the longstanding blanket exemptions granted to them. The ruling upended decades of policy and placed immediate pressure on both the government and the Chareidi community.
Estimates suggest that around 80,000 Chareidi men between the ages of 18 and 24 are currently eligible for military service but have not enlisted. At the same time, the IDF has stated that it needs some 12,000 additional recruits urgently, citing the heavy burden on standing and reserve forces amid the war with Hamas in Gaza and other security demands.
Shas lawmakers have consistently backed the proposed legislation, which would preserve exemptions for full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly encouraging greater enlistment among graduates of Chareidi educational frameworks. In recent weeks, they have even voiced support for the bill during visits to Chareidi draft evaders held in military prison.
In a separate Kol Barama interview on Sunday, Shas MK Michael Malkieli stressed that his party is acting in full coordination with United Torah Judaism, despite a very public dispute between the two factions over control of Yerushalayim’s religious council.
Medina’s remarks followed closely on comments from a senior Degel HaTorah figure, part of the UTJ alliance, who told Ynet that “if there is no progress” on the enlistment bill, “we will not vote in favor of the budget…and if that means the government falls, then let the government fall.”
Both Shas and UTJ have previously rejected claims that they were explicitly threatening to bring down the government over the issue. Nonetheless, the pressure campaign appears to have resonated at the top of the coalition.
Addressing a meeting focused on funding for Chareidi education on Sunday, Netanyahu urged lawmakers to move far more quickly on the contentious bill. “We need to accelerate the completion of the conscription law legislation — everything depends on it,” Ynet quoted him as saying.
Under the proposed framework, yeshiva students who ignored draft orders over the past year would effectively have their status reset. Yeshivos would also immediately regain half of the funding that was cut following the High Court’s 2024 decision, a step meant to ease both financial strain and legal exposure within the community.
Those granted deferments would face travel-related sanctions, though critics argue these measures are largely symbolic and would expire once individuals reach age 26. More substantial penalties affecting subsidies would only be imposed if enlistment targets are missed.
The legislation has drawn sharp criticism from the Attorney General’s Office, the IDF, and the Finance Ministry, all of which contend that it is unlikely to produce a meaningful rise in Chareidi enlistment.
In a legal opinion circulated to lawmakers over the weekend, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor faulted the bill’s gradual, multi-year approach to sanctions and urged a reconsideration of the clause that ends penalties at age 26, when repeated deferments become a permanent exemption.
Echoing that concern, a Finance Ministry representative told the committee on Sunday that “setting an expiration date for the sanctions empties most of them of their substance.”
Opposition lawmakers also assailed the sanctions structure, questioning why the bill calls for an exceptions committee that would include a representative from the Yeshiva Committee — an organization that a Times of Israel investigation found actively advises yeshiva students on how to evade the draft.
Also on Sunday, UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf took an uncompromising stance, arguing that instead of penalizing those who choose Torah study over military service, “all sanctions should be abolished.” He told the committee, “I implore the committee: If there are those who study Torah, exempt them from everything. They should not be tied to quotas or targets,” and accused supporters of sanctions of promoting a “yellow star” for Torah scholars.
That remark drew immediate and fierce backlash. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid responded by invoking his own family history, saying, “My father wore a yellow star in the Budapest ghetto simply because there was no Jewish army to protect his life. My grandfather wore a yellow star when he was murdered in a concentration camp,” and labeling Goldknopf’s comparison “the dream of every antisemite.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also condemned Goldknopf, saying there was “no place in our coalition” for individuals “who don’t stop harming the people of Israel, IDF fighters and Torah scholars.” In a post on X, he added, “Our heroic fighters are the ones battling the Nazis of every generation and preventing them from carrying out the Final Solution conceived by the one who devised the yellow star.”
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth sought to strike a measured tone, saying, “The members of the committee know the immense respect I have for Torah scholars and, in general, for the Chareidi world, but a yellow patch is not here — we need to set a limit.”
UTJ MK Meir Porush went even further than Goldknopf, warning that cutting daycare subsidies to families of draft evaders would lead to “starvation” among Chareidim and could violate Israel’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Unlike Degel HaTorah and Shas, the Agudas Yisrael faction led by Goldknopf and Porush has openly opposed the bill, with Goldknopf saying he cannot support any legislation that includes sanctions at all.
Defending the draft, Bismuth, a Likud MK and the author of the revised version, dismissed the criticism as detached from reality. Addressing Yisrael Beytenu MK Sharon Nir, he argued that following her approach would mean “there will be not be 17,000 [Chareidi] soldiers, there will be 17,000 prisoners and 5,000 soldiers forced to guard them.”
As the political battle played out in the Knesset, tensions spilled into the streets. Chareidi protesters attempted to block recruits at the Yerushalayim enlistment office and at the Bakum induction base in central Israel, prompting clashes with police who used water cannons to disperse the crowds.
Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon also weighed in on Sunday, accusing the government of defying a High Court directive by failing to implement tougher sanctions against draft evaders, a lapse he described as a “constitutional crisis.” “The High Court required the formulation of the policy by today. This constitutes a violation of the ruling,” Ynet quoted him as telling a weekly cabinet meeting after a court-imposed deadline expired.
In mid-November, the High Court had granted the government 45 days to craft effective enforcement tools, including criminal proceedings, against Chareidi yeshiva students who refused to comply with conscription orders.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices charged that the government and state authorities had almost “totally shirked” their duty to enforce the law against Chareidi draft dodgers, calling it a case of selective enforcement and a breach of the state’s obligation to uphold its own laws.
The court instructed the government to promptly initiate criminal proceedings against those already deemed draft evaders and to present, by January 4, civil and economic enforcement measures with a strong likelihood of success against all who ignore enlistment orders.
According to reports, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs responded to Limon by saying that “the government’s policy is to approve the conscription law.”
{Matzav.com}
