Netanyahu ‘Stunned’ as Haredi Parties Reject Latest Draft Bill

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly stunned Sunday after Degel HaTorah rejected the latest draft of the coalition’s military conscription bill, a decision that may push Israel closer to early elections in September.

According to Avraham Freund, officials in both Netanyahu’s office and Degel HaTorah described a sense of shock when Rabbi Dov Lando, the faction’s spiritual leader, instructed MKs not to advance the bill.

One source said lawmakers were “pale as chalk” when Lando’s answer arrived. Netanyahu’s associates insisted that the prime minister had genuinely intended to pass the bill and said the rejection effectively ended the effort.

“Game over,” sources around Netanyahu said.

The refusal was reportedly driven in part by Lando’s position that he would not decide without his partner in the Haredi leadership, Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, who opposes the current version of the legislation.

Netanyahu’s circle is now accusing the Haredi leadership of leaving draft-age Haredi men facing a prolonged period of sanctions and uncertainty, without a clear path toward a legal solution. A tidy little political disaster, lovingly assembled over years and then dropped on everyone’s shoes.

The bill is meant to regulate the status of tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who have not enlisted despite the High Court’s 2024 ruling that there is no legal basis for blanket draft exemptions. It would formally increase some Haredi enlistment, but critics say it is full of loopholes and would preserve broad exemptions for full-time yeshiva students.

The Haredi rejection came after reports that the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee was preparing to distribute an updated draft. Netanyahu had tried to revive the bill after the Haredi parties began pushing to dissolve the Knesset, hoping to prevent the crisis from forcing early elections.

But Lando reportedly believes Netanyahu has no real intention of letting the legislation pass and is instead using the process as part of a broader electoral maneuver. He had previously warned lawmakers “not to get drawn into political games.”

The dispute is expected to strengthen the Haredi parties’ push to bring elections forward, likely to September 15, during the High Holidays. The Knesset already passed a preliminary reading of a dissolution bill last week by a unanimous 110-0 vote. If the bill passes three more readings, elections must be held within five months, and no later than October 27 in any case.

The IDF says it faces a severe manpower shortage after more than two years of war. More than 79,000 conscription orders have been issued to Haredi men since the High Court ruling, but only about 2,100 have enlisted. According to the military, around 32,000 are currently classified as draft evaders, with another 50,000 formally warned ahead of being declared evaders.