Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and MKs attend a plenum session and a vote on reviving the ultra-Orthodox draft exemption bill at the assembly hall of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on June 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Thwarted by Haredi intransigence, Netanyahu may push to dissolve Knesset within days

The utra-Orthodox push to pass bills benefiting draft evaders, and their ongoing boycott of coalition legislation, could lead PM to call for slightly earlier elections

by · The Times of Israel

The ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties’ preelection push to pass a bundle of bills benefitting draft evaders has led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who has previously publicly supported exempting Haredim from military service — to consider pushing the coalition’s Knesset dissolution bill through its final two readings in the coming days, according to Hebrew press reports.

Over the weekend, Channel 12 reported that coalition officials have been pushing Netanyahu to dissolve the Knesset this week in order to block a number of Haredi initiatives — centered on exempting yeshiva students from enlistment and lifting sanctions on draft evaders — from advancing in the Knesset because widespread public opposition to the measures could damage the coalition.

According to the network, Netanyahu has not yet made up his mind on whether to push through the dissolution and hold elections on October 20 instead of October 27, which is the final date by which they must be held.

Most coalition party leaders support such a move given the intense public opposition to the bills, the report said.

The pressure is also likely related to Shas and UTJ’s ongoing legislative boycott, which has left the government unable to advance its own agenda — centered on splitting up the role of the attorney general, establishing a political commission of inquiry into the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack and giving the government significant control over the media before the upcoming preelection Knesset recess.

Like Channel 12, the Maariv daily reported that elections are likely to be held on October 20. It added that if the coalition does not manage to pass these key bills, they will become central issues in the upcoming election.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters demonstrate against the arrest of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who took part in a protest outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg and were later handed over to the military police, outside the Abu Kabir detention facility in Tel Aviv, June 10, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The ultra-Orthodox parties last month moved to dissolve the Knesset and trigger early elections over the coalition’s failure to pass a controversial law restoring yeshiva students’ draft exemptions. But while the dissolution bill passed its first reading, it has not yet been advanced to the final two votes needed for it to become law.

The exemption legislation — which would have ostensibly increased military conscription in the Haredi community, but ultimately enable continued exemptions for full-time yeshiva students — was widely seen as legally dubious and laden with loopholes. It has generated intense resistance even among members of Netanyahu’s coalition and was briefly taken off the table in March with the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Since beginning the dissolution process, the Haredim have pushed for the passage of legislation declaring Torah study a foundational value of the State of Israel, restoring daycare subsidies to the children of draft dodgers, and halting the arrests of evaders.

Despite a committee vote to advance the so-called Daycare Law, however, the coalition has declined to bring it to the plenum for a vote, citing a lack of support. This prompted the Haredim to launch a legislative boycott derailing the coalition’s agenda, with only weeks to go before the preelection parliamentary recess, which a coalition source recently told The Times of Israel will probably begin on July 16.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference at his office in Jerusalem, June 15, 2026. (Olivier Fitoussi/POOL)

Senior Shas and UTJ officials who spoke with the ultra-Orthodox Behadrei Haredim news site on Saturday evening said that they felt thwarted in their efforts to force the premier to advance their own agenda by holding coalition legislation hostage.

“We no longer have anything to threaten him with. The moment UTJ agreed to elections on October 20, as Netanyahu demanded, we were left with no leverage. We are left with nothing, and now he is the one who gets to choose when to dissolve the Knesset,” the outlet quoted a Haredi official as saying.

“We failed in everything, we have nothing to present to our voters, we failed,” another Haredi political figure stated. “Netanyahu played us and played us, and we followed him like a blind goat.”