Haredi Shas party announces exit from Israeli gov’t, but not coalition, leaving Netanyahu to fight for another day

In a surprising move, the Shas party announced its ministers would resign from the government, but the party would not leave the coalition, amid the ongoing row over a new IDF draft law and sanctions for Haredi draft dodgers.

Shas was expected to join its allied Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, which left both the government and the coalition earlier this week.

This left the coalition with a bare majority of 61 out of 120 seats, and Shas’s departure would have made new elections highly likely.

The Knesset will go into a three-month recess at the end of this month, giving the coalition enough time to salvage the crisis.

Shas’s highest leadership forum, a group of senior rabbis called “The Council of Torah Sages,” decided on the unusual move in a meeting on Wednesday.

Religious Services Minister Michael Malkiel announced the decision by reading a statement of the council to the press. The main reason, he said, was the continuing “persecution of Torah scholars,” meaning attempts to draft a new IDF draft law.

“In the current situation, it is impossible to sit in a government and be a partner to it,” Malkieli said. However, the council added that “there is no room for any cooperation with the leftist and opposition parties, since they too led the wild incitement against the Torah scholars.”

Therefore, the party will not leave the coalition, but only resign its ministers from the government.

Malkieli also accused Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, who is responsible for drafting the IDF bill, of walking back on previous promises and adding “draconian and unacceptable demands whose sole purpose is to harm and humiliate the Torah scholars.”

This indicates that Shas will not support any motions to disperse the Knesset and trigger new elections.

According to media reports, Edelstein proposed to verify that yeshiva students who received a draft exemption were indeed at school by using fingerprint scanners. Such moves, said Malkieli, are “nothing less than cruel and criminal persecution against yeshiva students.”

Edelstein also faced attacks from party colleagues. Transportation Minister Miri Regev blamed him for toppling “a right-wing government during wartime.”

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused Edelstein of changing a draft that had been presented before the campaign against Iran.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid seized the opportunity to call for new elections. “As of today, there is a minority government in Israel. A minority government cannot send soldiers into battle. A minority government cannot decide who lives and who dies. A minority government cannot determine the fate of Gaza or negotiate agreements with Syria or Saudi Arabia.”

“It has no authority. It has no right. It is an illegitimate government,” Lapid charged.

Edelstein hit back at the criticism, saying about the Haredi representatives that “Deep down, they know I’m right, that enlistment is necessary, especially for those not genuinely devoted to Torah study. They know reservists can’t keep bearing the load alone. They know that without real sanctions and oversight, nothing will work – and honestly, they’ve told me so.”

In another statement, he blamed the Haredi parties for not proposing any concrete alternatives to his draft.

“So I repeat to the leaders of the Haredi public – this is not the time to overthrow the right-wing government. Say, for the first time, what you want. Bring a counter-proposal. My door is open to you, I commit to looking into this very quickly and to negotiate.”

As a result of Shas’s decision, several senior ministerial posts will be vacated, including those of Minister of the Interior, Moshe Arbel; Minister of Health, Uriel Buso; Minister of Labor, Yoav Ben-Tzur; and four others.

During the Knesset recess, no legislation can be passed. However, for other types of votes, the coalition still holds a sufficient majority.