Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emerging bargain with the ultra-Orthodox would give both sides what they need most right now, time. Netanyahu is under pressure from deteriorating ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, open military fronts, a strengthening Iran, and polls showing Likud sinking to around 20 seats. At the same time, several major political and legislative wins are within reach, and he needs time to secure them before any election.
Among the measures advancing are the communications bill, now in the stage of voting on objections and soon expected to reach second and third readings in the Knesset; a bill to split the attorney general’s role, which is being prepared in the Constitution Committee for second and third readings; and a state commission of inquiry bill, also being readied in the Constitution Committee for first reading, with an option to apply continuity in the next Knesset if it passes. Basic Law, Torah Study has already passed a preliminary reading.
For Netanyahu, these moves could help him campaign with concrete achievements, especially on judicial overhaul issues, instead of heading into elections with the same promises he has already failed to deliver even with 68 seats. For the ultra-Orthodox, the main problem is a crisis with their voters, who are angry that in a government where, as the article puts it, “everything is possible,” young Haredi men can still be arrested on the way to a supermarket or a yeshiva.
The Haredi leadership now has broader legitimacy to pursue a move that would stop the arrests, even if financial sanctions remain. The practical plan is to split off part of the draft-exemption law and pass it separately, but there are legal obstacles because the relevant bill in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is under continuity from the previous Knesset, while the arrest-halting clause was not part of it then. Families of October 7 victims, organized in the October Council, condemned the deal, saying that in Israel “the blood of more than 2,000 fallen and murdered is worth less than the draft-dodging law,” and accusing anyone who trades on the October 7 investigation of “trading in truth” and “trading in blood.”
