BICOM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided the collapse of his governing coalition after he reached a deal on legislation to allow male ultra-Orthodox students to avoid conscription.

The new conscription bill emerged from a meeting between Netanyahu and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, which was then approved by the party’s Hasidic Torah Sages Council headed by the Gur Rebbe.

Likud sources said that Netanyahu agreed to support the draft Bill in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation and bring it to a preliminary vote in the Knesset  before the budget is passed, with the bill then shelved until the Knesset’s summer session.

Last week UTJ threatened to vote against the 2019 budget unless the legislation was passed. The compromise still needs approval from Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has insisted only his ministry can draft an ultra-Orthodox conscription Bill, and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who last week threatened to leave the coalition unless the budget was passed by the end of this week.

Netanyahu told his Likud faction: “We are working toward a stable government that will continue until the end of its term in November 2019. In order for that to happen, all of the factions must come to an agreement and decide to continue together.”

Oded Forer, an MK from Yisrael Beytenu, said this morning that his party would fight any Bill not supported by the Defence Ministry but did not say if it would leave the coalition. Netanyahu has ruled out forming a coalition without the five members of Yisrael Beytenu because it would mean governing with a majority of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats.

Analysts and senior politicians have claimed that Netanyahu would prefer to call elections as recent polls place the Likud in a strong position. Education Minister Naftali Bennett tweeted yesterday: “Mr. Prime Minister, as long as you work for the good of the State of Israel, we will continue to stand behind you. If you dissolve a right-wing government and lead the way to an unnecessary election for personal reasons, you will lose us.”

The proposed conscription Bill would amend the Basic Law to declare that studying Torah is more important than equality under the law, which would preclude the Supreme Court from overturning exemptions from conscription for yeshiva students on the grounds that they violate equality. It would also let yeshiva students defer army service until age 26.