Degel HaTorah is pressing the coalition to advance the daycare subsidy bill immediately, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud gave a clear commitment on the issue and must honor it in full. Party figures said they will not accept any delay or retreat from that pledge and expect the law to pass without further obstacles.
Agudat Yisrael also backed the demand, saying the entire faction stands united with Degel HaTorah and insisting Netanyahu fulfill his promise to pass the law. The faction added that if the bill is not approved, it would amount to an admission that the prime minister wants to dissolve the Knesset and head to elections.
On Wednesday, after the vote on the bill was postponed, United Torah Judaism chairman MK Yitzhak Goldknopf lashed out at what he called political games. “We are tired of tricks and stunts meant only to generate headlines and spin,” he said, adding that the government will not do now what it failed to do over the past four years. “We have long since disabused ourselves and have no trust,” he said, citing rabbinic guidance that the party should demand the Knesset dissolution bill be brought on Wednesday.
United Torah Judaism is accusing Netanyahu of abandoning the ultra-Orthodox parties, which he has previously described as Likud’s “natural partners.” Party sources said he has lost control of coalition factions and cannot discipline members of Smotrich’s party or Likud, and that he is backing away after being told the law would cause public harm.
The bill, which would fund daycare subsidies for yeshiva students liable for military service, was discussed two weeks ago in the Knesset Finance Committee. Budget Department representative Rom Bar-Ab said the measure undermines enlistment incentives, has no economic logic, and would also hurt labor-force participation. Last week, the bill passed the Knesset plenum in preliminary reading by 44 to 37, after Religious Zionism MKs left the chamber in protest. United Torah Judaism says the coalition yielded to ultra-Orthodox pressure then, but now wants the law advanced at once.
