'Netanyahu had to end his term immediately after October 7'

Likud MK resigns, reveals third of party sought to remove Netanyahu after October 7

Dan Illouz says party has been ‘hijacked’ by Haredi interests, efforts to enshrine draft exemption are a ‘disgrace that made it clear to me that my place is no longer in Likud’

Likud MK Dan Illouz announced Wednesday that he would resign, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party had “been hijacked” amid the recent raft of controversial legislation the coalition has pushed through the Knesset, aimed at appeasing the ultra-Orthodox parties.

“I simply cannot call on you to vote for a party that I myself am no longer able to vote for,” Illouz wrote in a post on Facebook.

“The truth is, immediately after October 7, it was clear to everyone that Netanyahu had to end his term,” he continued. “Instead of standing before the public and asking for forgiveness, the Likud is doing everything to evade responsibility.”

In a subsequent interview aired on Thursday, Illouz said that following October 7, about a third of the party’s lawmakers sought to remove Netanyahu as prime minister.

“When something like October 7 happens, a country that wants to survive cannot simply carry on as usual,” he told the Ynet news site. “That also has to be reflected in the leadership, which needs to change. After October 7, that was obvious to a great many Likud members. Some of my colleagues, who today are very busy showing how close they are to Netanyahu, were back then focused on how we could replace him.”

“I think at least a third of the Likud faction understood that the right thing for the State of Israel was for the leadership to change,” he said. “Not through elections, because we were in the middle of an intense war, but through a vote of no confidence.”

In his original post announcing his resignation, Illouz railed at what he said was his party’s ongoing betrayal of its voters.

“From evading responsibility for October 7, to promoting schemes exempting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service] while our voters are collapsing in the reserves, to surrendering to interest groups that are raising the cost of living for all of us. This is no longer the Likud Party. This is a party that has been hijacked,” he said.

“The draft exemption saga is a disgrace that made it clear to me that my place is no longer in the Likud,” Illouz said.

“While the IDF is warning of collapse under the burden, Likud has chosen continued surrender to the Haredi parties and promoted schemes to institutionalize evasion,” he said, arguing that at this point, a vote for Likud is “no different” from a vote for Haredi parties Shas or UTJ.

“I will not run in the Likud primaries,” he said.

Illouz likely would have had a hard time being reelected anyway, as he had been able to enter the Knesset through the Likud spot reserved for new immigrants — a benefit that would not have been available to him in the upcoming primaries.

He joins a growing list of Likud defectors citing the party’s efforts to enshrine Haredi draft exemption, with a judge in the party’s internal court announcing Wednesday that he is quitting the party for the same reason.

“I hope, and will act, so that in the coming elections Likud is weakened and forced to ally with right-wing parties that have a moral backbone, which will not surrender to Haredi extortion,” Emanuel Weiser, a judge on Likud’s internal court, wrote in his resignation letter, according to a copy published by Hebrew media outlets.

Illouz’s and Weiser’s departures came a day after the Knesset approved a controversial coalition-backed law temporarily banning the arrest and prosecution of ultra-Orthodox men evading military service, and thereby legitimizing continued mass Haredi non-enlistment.

The High Court of Justice temporarily froze the implementation of the law on Wednesday, ordering that a hearing be held on the legislation as soon as possible.

The Haredi legislative push comes after the High Court ruled unanimously in 2024 that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military since there was no legal framework to continue the decades-long practice of granting them blanket exemptions from army service.