Knesset votes ultra-Orthodox bill, coalition and opposition



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The Knesset was scheduled to vote Monday afternoon on a controversial bill formalizing the military enlistment of ultra-Orthodox students in a session that is expected to see coalition members turn against the government and a party. Opposition change allegiance.

The bill formalizes exemptions from compulsory military service for students of the ultra-Orthodox seminary by setting annual conscription goals. Seminars that do not meet the targets would be subject to economic sanctions under the law.

Even though the two parties of the ultra-Orthodox coalition, Shas and United Torah Judaism, intend to vote against the bill at first reading, their missing votes will be opposed by the support of the party of Opposition Yesh Atid, who declared to vote with the government.


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Other opposition parties criticized Yesh Atid for supporting the bill, activists of the Zionist Union party demonstrating Sunday in front of the homes of Yesh Atid members, exhorting

Yair Lapid, leader of Yesh Atid, speaking at a Knesset faction meeting, Jerusalem, June 11, 2018. Hadas Parush / Flash90)

Yesh Atid, led by MK Yair Lapid, argued that the law is close to a bill similar to that proposed in the past. The main differences are that the current bill does not call for criminal penalties against students who dodge economic penalties only against the institutions where they study, and also has a lower quota for the number of ultra-high school students. Orthodox that will be written each year.

The party of the joint (Arabic) list, which includes 13 opposition MPs, said that its deputies would not participate in the vote.

Monday morning the Ministerial Committee on Legislation, chaired by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, will hold a The Minister approved the bill for a first reading of the Knesset the next day

The Minister of Justice 39 Interior Aryeh Deri and the Deputy Minister of Health have both approved the bill. Minister Yaakov Litzman, who headed the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism respectively, has expressed opposition to the legislation as it stands.

Leader of the Sha Minister of the Interior, Aryeh Deri, right, with the head of the Deputy Minister of Health of the United Judaism Party, Yaakov Litzman at a joint meeting at the Knesset, Jerusalem, June 19, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)

In September 2017, the High Court of Justice overturned an earlier law exempting ultra-Orthodox men who were engaged in religious studies from military service, baderting that it undermined the principle of equality before the law. However, the court suspended its decision for a year to allow the establishment of a new arrangement, giving the government the option to pbad a new law by September 1, 2018.

Despite their opposition to the current proposal, the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties would have had talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and agreed not to bring the government down on the bill.

Instead, the Prime Minister reportedly announced early elections once an amortized version of The Maariv newspaper reported Friday that

According to the report, neither party wants the government to fall into the bill, because he fears that Lapid's party, Yesh Atid, is campaigning for the drafting of the ultra-Orthodox community in the army.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the right, talks with the then Minister of Health, Yaakov Litzman, of the United Torah Judaism Party, on the left, in the Knesset on the 28th March 2016. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90 / File)

Netanyahu would also be concerned that a national election campaign in the near future could adversely affect Likud's participation in the October municipal elections in any event. the country.

stated that despite their protests and threats, the ultra-Orthodox parties realize that if the bill on conscription does not pbad, they would give votes to Lapid and probably weaken their negotiating position in the next government [19659020]. of 2019, after a softened commitment bill, could allow both the Likud and the ultra-Orthodox parties to claim from their respective constituents that they had won a victory.

The elections are not due until the end of October 2019, but a senior political source told Maariv that talks between the prime minister and the ultra-orthodox parties had been held. place in recent weeks to establish a preferred earlier date.

The ultra-Orthodox parties declared that they were seeking to remove sanctions from the legislation and to delay the implementation of the law for the next three years.

The proposal sets minimum annual targets for ultra-Orthodox conscription which, if not respected, would result in financial penalties for the yeshivas where they study.

The current version sets the target for ultra-Orthodox recruits for 2018 at just under 4000 recruits with this number increasing by 8 percent per year for three years, 6.5 percent for the next three years and 5 % for four additional years.

If 95% of targets are not achieved, sanctions in the form of cuts in public funds allocated to ultra-Orthodox yeshivas will be put in place, increasing every year, the targets are missed.

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