With the dust of the Knesset’s two haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties departing from the government beginning to settle, the future of the bill to regulate the community’s IDF service remains unclear.
The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee held dozens of meetings during the past year based on the text of a prior bill that passed its first reading in 2022 during the Lapid-Bennett government.
However, the panel’s chair, Yuli Edelstein, said repeatedly that his committee had “cleaned the slate” on the previous bill, which was widely believed to be irrelevant following Hamas’s October 7 massacre, and that a new bill could be significantly altered.
Edelstein presented an incomplete version of the fresh bill in the Knesset on July 14, but decided not to publish it after haredi representatives rejected it.
Regev vs. Edelstein
In an interview on KAN News on Saturday, Transportation Minister Miri Regev (Likud) said that Edelstein had “misled the haredim,” and that “if he doesn’t come to his senses, he needs to leave his position.”
Regev added, “There was a clear agreement and a clear outline. Edelstein misled them and us. There are foreign considerations involved, and he even admitted that he hardened his stance after reaching an agreement.”
Her criticism echoed those of numerous haredi MKs, who said in a series of interviews over the weekend that Edelstein had reneged on agreements struck on June 12, a day before Israel launched Operation Rising Lion against Iran.
Edelstein, for his part, said in response during a press conference last Tuesday and in an interview with Maariv on Friday that his bill was based on the June 12 agreements, but that these lacked many specific details that were later added into the text since then.
These extra details included a series of measures intended to ensure that the haredim held up their end of the bargain, such as requiring fingerprint ID to track attendance at yeshivas, which ultimately led to the negotiations collapsing.
The bill cannot be moved to a different committee without Edelstein’s approval. Therefore, the only way to push through a version acceptable to the haredi parties is to remove him from the committee chairmanship.
Regev’s comments, which were ambiguous regarding whether she believed Edelstein should resign on his own accord or be removed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reflected the hesitation amongst government leadership to replace him, mainly due to the public backlash it would likely generate.
Asked in the Maariv interview whether he would be fired from his position, the panel’s chairman responded, “I don’t rule out scenarios in politics, but I’m not afraid, and I’m not considering changing my positions. My conscience is clear. I’m not the one shouting – they are, because they know I’m right.”
Despite the Knesset recess that is set to begin on July 27 and last until October 19, the committee is the only one that has the prerogative to meet as many times as the chairman requires, and ergo, if Edelstein is removed, the bill could progress during the summer and pass into law at the beginning of the winter term.
The bill’s fate thus hinges on that of Edelstein’s, which remains unclear. In the meantime, the current law, which requires all eligible haredi men to serve in the IDF, will continue to apply.