Second Israeli Ultra-Orthodox party quits government

Al Jazeera

16-07-2025

A key partner in Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition says it is quitting, leaving the Israeli prime minister with a razor thin majority in parliament.
The Ultra-Orthodox Shas party said on Wednesday that it was leaving the cabinet in protest against lawmakers' failure to guarantee future exemption from military conscription for religious students.
'Shas representatives … find with a heavy heart that they cannot stay in the government and be a part of it,' said the group in a statement.
Shas, which has long served as a kingmaker in Israeli politics, said it wouldn't work to undermine the government once outside it and could vote with it on some laws. It also wouldn't support its collapse.
The departure of Shas comes one day after another ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), resigned from the government over the same issue, which has sparked an explosive debate in the country after more than 21 months of war with Hamas in Gaza.
However, unlike the UTJ, a Shas spokesman said the party was not leaving the parliamentary coalition, leaving Netanyahu with a slim majority.
While ultra-Orthodox seminary students have long been exempt from mandatory military service, many Israelis are angered by what they see as an unfair burden carried by the mainstream who serve.
The joint move by Shas and UTJ comes just before Parliament starts a three-month summer recess on July 27, giving the Prime Minister several months of little to no legislative activity to bring the parties back into the fold.
'Cruel and criminal persecution'
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders say full-time devotion to holy scriptures study is sacrosanct and fear their young men will steer away from religious life if they are drafted into the military.
Last year the Supreme Court ordered an end to the exemption. Parliament has been trying to work out a new conscription bill, which has so far failed to meet the demands of both Shas and UTJ.
Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli, a member of Shas, said on Wednesday that rabbis were angered after Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein reneged on promises regarding the bill, according to a report in the Times of Israel.
Malkieli, reading from a statement by the Council of Torah Sages, also hit out at action taken by the IDF and attorney general to pursue draft dodgers, describing the move as 'nothing less than cruel and criminal persecution against yeshiva students'.
The rupture is not expected to usher in immediate elections or undermine efforts to secure a possible Gaza ceasefire.
However, the Israeli leader may be more susceptible to the demands of his far-right coalition partners, who oppose ending the war while Hamas remains intact.