The government is expected to vote on Tuesday to approve allocating over NIS 5 billion in coalition funds toward the 2026 state budget, with millions of shekels directed toward haredi (ultra-Orthodox) institutions as part of the proposal.
Millions of shekels are also expected to be allocated toward advancing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Opposition politicians have sharply criticized the decision to allocate funds to haredi institutions during wartime, particularly as the IDF has urgently warned of a shortage in manpower while haredim continue to avoid military service.
The move also comes as the government advances controversial legislation regarding haredi conscription. Critics argue the legislation is a political measure intended to appease the haredi parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and will not effectively enforce conscription.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett slammed the government, accusing it of stealing from the public “like thieves in the night.”
Opposition leaders respond
“While the people of Israel are fighting on the front lines, this government is busy looting the public chest,” Bennett said.
“They are playing politics during wartime and once again tearing the nation apart. While hundreds of thousands of reservists have left their homes to defend the country, the government is now secretly transferring billions of shekels of political money to draft evaders, and doing so under the false title of an ‘emergency budget,’” Bennett stated.
“They are transferring these billions not for protection measures, not for the families of reservists, not for the rehabilitation of the North and the South, but to draft evaders. and during a war.”
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman also criticized the move.
“At a time when Israel is fighting a multi-front war, and the IDF is facing one of the most severe manpower crises in its history, the draft-evasion government is approving the most political budget in the history of the state,” Liberman stated.
“In the next government, we will redirect all of these budgets to benefit those who serve,” he added.
The Democratic Party leader, Yair Golan, also accused the government of stealing from its citizens.
“People of Israel, right now NIS 5 billion has been taken from your wallets during wartime,” he stated.
“It could have been invested in security, reservists, healthcare, welfare, education, and rehabilitation.”
Instead, Golan claimed the government “is only investing in itself: draft evasion, settlements, and corruption.”
“A scheme that knows no limits. We will replace them. And we will return Israel to the right path,” he added.
Former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot (Yashar!) also argued that the government is perpetuating and encouraging draft evasion during wartime.
“The Israeli government passes a draft-evasion law with one hand and, with the other, transfers a budget to draft evaders, so that heaven forbid it might even occur to them to enlist,” he stated.
“If the members of this detached Israeli government were living the reality unfolding in the country, and meeting the citizens and reservists I met yesterday in Kiryat Shmona, Yiftah, and Metula, and if they truly cared about the good of the state - they would be dealing this morning with transferring a budget to strengthen the communities of the North and providing additional support for those serving and their families,” Eisenkot added.
The state budget was approved in its first reading in January following a crisis in Netanyahu’s coalition, as haredi parties threatened to vote against it. The budget must still pass its final readings in the Knesset plenum by the end of the month.
By law, if the state budget is not approved in all three readings by the end of March, the Knesset will automatically dissolve, and elections will be called.
The already tight deadline in the annual high-stakes process has been further complicated by the ongoing war against Iran.
Haredi parties have continued to threaten to vote against the state budget if concessions are not made to limit haredi conscription to the IDF.