The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s events as they happen.

After ministers voted today to advance a bill aimed at hampering former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s next election run, the politician hits back, claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party is afraid of facing him in a free and fair election.

In a post on social media, Bennett says that the “harder the poison machine against me is working, the more it’s a sign that they understand change is coming.”

“Instead of running against me in a free election, the Likud party is trying to prevent me from running,” he writes. “If they thought they would win, they wouldn’t need to go after personal, retroactive legislation.”

The legislation in question would require any new party established by a chairman whose previous party dissolved within the past seven years to assume responsibility for paying off that party’s outstanding debts before being able to use campaign funds raised for his new party to finance its electoral campaign.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, Yamina has NIS 17 million ($5 million) in debts, while another former Bennett party, Jewish Home, owes NIS 3 million ($913,000).

Bennett asserts that Likud has a far greater current campaign finance debt, and that he was not the most recent party leader of either Jewish Home or Yamina, which were headed by Rafi Peretz and Ayelet Shaked, respectively, after his departure. Therefore, he claims, he is not subject to any such debts.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker firmly rejects any suggestion of banning Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest as his country prepares to host the next edition of the competition in 2026.

“I would consider it a fatal mistake to exclude Israel,” Stocker is quoted as saying in an interview with German news agency dpa published today, Austria’s National Day. “Based on our history alone, I would never be in favor of that,” he adds, in reference to Austria’s shared responsibility for crimes committed during the Holocaust.

The public broadcasters of some European countries, including Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands have pledged to withdraw if Israel takes part in the contest to be held in Vienna next May, citing its actions during the two-year war against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the terror group’s massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Eurovision Song Contest organizers scrapped a planned November meeting to vote on Israel’s participation in the wake of the ceasefire announced earlier this month, and are now set to consider the issue in December.

Members of the ultra-Orthodox community will hold a massive prayer rally against conscription at the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, announces a spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party.

The protest was originally slated to be held on Sunday but was delayed, reportedly due to disagreements between the various ultra-Orthodox factions involved. The rally will bring together representatives from United Torah Judaism’s Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael factions as well as the Sephardic Shas party and other groups.

In a separate statement, Shas says that the event will be held at 2:30 p.m., with additional details to be announced later.

The protest comes as ultra-Orthodox activists and lawmakers rage against what they describe as a “wave of arrests” of yeshiva students who ignored enlistment orders and are evading military service.

Last week, Shas gave up its chairmanships of parliamentary committees to protest the lack of a law regulating the conscription........

© The Times of Israel