Ultra-Orthodox parties said to threaten new boycott until army exemptions legislated
The Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties are reportedly threatening to again boycott coalition-backed legislation in the Knesset until a bill is passed to legislate exemptions from army service for the young men of their community.
The threat relates to private member bills submitted by coalition lawmakers, Channel 12 said in an unsourced report Saturday.
It would mark a return to a strategy applied earlier this year in an effort to force the government to move ahead with the demanded legislation.
Delays over a bill in the works to provide sweeping exemptions from national army service for members of the ultra-Orthodox community, also called Haredim, led the parties to say, earlier this month, that they would back a bill to dissolve the Knesset and trigger elections. A last-minute compromise on the bill saw the Haredi parties pull their support, and the dissolution was voted down.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leaning on Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, who chairs the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, to make progress with the bill and put forward a proposal soon, even if it is clear that it would not actually make it to a parliamentary vote, the report said. Edelstein’s committee is overseeing the........
© The Times of Israel
