Israeli Coalition Partner Quits Government

United Torah Judaism (utj) is quitting Israel’s coalition government, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset. utj is leaving due to a long-standing dispute over conscription of yeshiva students.

utj is a conglomeration of Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox interest parties that is a perennial coalition partner of longtime Prime Minister Netanyahu. It claims its 2022 coalition agreement included passing a bill to exempt yeshiva students from military conscription. The government has yet to pass such a bill.

Against conscription: Yeshivas are Jewish seminaries where students immerse themselves in studying the Torah. Jewish Israelis over age 18 face mandatory conscription. But Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, gave an informal exemption to yeshiva students. The students were afraid conscription would destroy their way of life.

But in Israel’s nearly 80 years since statehood, the number of people who qualify for the exemption has risen from the hundreds to the tens of thousands. Many Israelis resent sending their sons and daughters into battle while yeshiva students are exempt.

Last year, the Supreme Court ordered the government to end the exemption and start drafting yeshiva students. The government sent approximately 50,000 call-up notices, but has been lax in going after draft dodgers.

utj wants the Knesset to legislate an official exemption while opposition parties want stricter enforcement. Netanyahu’s government has been trying to please both sides. It looks like that will no longer be possible.

New elections? If every member of the government’s Knesset majority still supports the coalition, it can survive a no-confidence vote. But there is another coalition member with ultra-Orthodox interests: Shas.

Shas has threatened to leave the government for the same reason. If it does so now, the government could fall.

What happens next? Since Hamas began its war on Israel with its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, Israel has had victory after victory—largely due to Netanyahu’s leadership.

He has defeated Hezbollah and severely set back Iran’s nuclear program. Yet internal squabbles threaten to send Israel into leaderless chaos in the middle of a war.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in our latest Trumpet issue:

Benjamin Netanyahu is the “rising lion of Israel.” The world would be in a much more dangerous place without him!

It is a terrible shame that almost everyone hates him—even within his own country! His critics are blind to the terrifying dangers that Iran poses to the world!

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership is the one major physical factor holding many of Israel’s enemies at bay. If Israel gets thrown into another election, radical Islamist groups could try to take advantage and stage a counterattack.

Learn more: Read “Netanyahu: Israel’s Rising Lion.”