The ultra-Orthodox Shas party will not vote for the 2026 state budget without the prior passage of the coalition’s bill regulating Haredi conscription and exemptions, party speaker Asher Medina threatened on Sunday, a move that would bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The support of Shas’s 11 MKs will be critical for the budget to pass by its March 31 deadline and head off the dissolution of the Knesset, triggering early elections.

“From the perspective of the Haredi public, the draft law is as far-reaching as one could possibly imagine. With God’s help, we will support the law because it is the only thing that will save the world of Torah,” Medina told the ultra-Orthodox Radio Kol Barama, adding that “the only thing that will stop the arrests is not demonstrations, but legislation.”

For the past year and a half, the Haredi leadership has pushed for a law keeping its constituency out of the Israel Defense Forces, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The IDF has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

Shas MKs repeatedly voiced their support for the bill — which proposes continued military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while purportedly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions — while visiting draft evaders in military prison.

In a separate interview with Kol Barama on Sunday, Shas lawmaker Michael Malkieli insisted that his party was fully coordinated with fellow ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism (UTJ) — even as the two parties engage in a high-profile fight for control of Jerusalem’s religious council.

Medina’s comments came only days after a senior representative of UTJ’s Degel HaTorah faction told the Ynet news site that “if there is no progress” on the enlistment bill, “we will not vote in favor of the budget…and if that means the government falls, then let the government fall.”

Both Shas and UTJ........

© The Times of Israel