Netanyahu’s coalition alliances with religious parties put his reelection at risk

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained in power for most of the past 17 years due in part to a tight alliance with ultra-Orthodox religious parties.

But that alliance is tearing apart his governing coalition and proving to be another major liability for the long-serving Israeli leader as the country heads to elections later this year. The Oct. 7, 2023, attack — and the inconclusive wars that have followed — are also weighing on him.

After 2 1/2 years of active fighting in multiple countries, much of it involving reservists, many Israelis are tired of a longstanding system that has allowed ultra-Orthodox men to skip military service. That anger has spread to Netanyahu’s own base.

The ultra-Orthodox are meanwhile furious at his failure to legalize their exemptions. They withdrew their support for the coalition two weeks ago, leading to an initial vote to dissolve parliament, known as the Knesset, on Wednesday.

That set in motion a process that could move elections up from October to September.

Here’s a closer look.

The clock is ticking

Netanyahu is still trying to pass a bill that would legalize the exemptions and fulfill a promise to his religious partners, but that appears to be a long shot given the strident opposition of many within his own coalition.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, who served for three years in a combat unit and is a vocal supporter of Netanyahu, said she was among at least seven members of the coalition who will not support the draft bill, rendering it impassable.

“The ultra-Orthodox are trying to extort us. It’s immoral. It’s not fair,” said Haskel, who wore her military uniform at the dissolution vote on Wednesday to highlight her opposition and highlight her own service.

Two major ultra-Orthodox parties deserted Netanyahu earlier this month after he told them he did not expect to be able to pass the exemptions bill. That left his coalition without a parliamentary majority, and is one of the main reasons for the bill to dissolve the Knesset.

“He made a promise to his most loyal allies in the coalition, and he could not deliver, he kept postponing,” said Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.

Yitzhak Pindrus, a lawmaker from one of the factions, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it has no plans to return to the coalition.

“We need the draft bill,” he said.

The ultra-Orthodox can make or break Netanyahu’s coalition

Israel’s political landscape is highly fragmented, and no one party has ever won a majority in the 120-member Knesset.

Instead, parties must build alliances to cobble together a majority, which often involves bargaining that gives smaller parties outsized influence.

The ultra-Orthodox currently have 18 seats in the Knesset, a similar number to previous years, but have long been indispensable to Netanyahu. In exchange for his support for government subsidies and the draft exemptions, they have stood by him through regional crises and longstanding corruption allegations.

Netanyahu has long relied on “automatic support” from the ultra-Orthodox, said Gilad Malach, an expert on the ultra-Orthodox at the Israel Democracy Institute, a research group in Jerusalem.

That support helped Netanyahu remain in power through the worst attack in Israel’s history.

The coalition, which also includes ultra-nationalist parties, “was much more stable than I ever imagined,” said Rosner. “Maybe it’s because they realized in a new election, they’re going to get defeated, and that’s why they stuck together.”

Imploding the coalition from within

If Netanyahu somehow passes some form of the draft exemption bill, it could dramatically alter the electoral map. It would push large sectors of the population, who have previously supported Netanyahu but are buckling under hundreds of days of reserve duty, to vote for rival parties that promise equal service, Malach said.

Netanyahu appears to stand little chance of remaining prime minister after October’s elections without ultra-Orthodox support. And he is probably their only hope of a bill that would avoid mandatory enlistment coming up for discussion in the next government.

But sticking with the ultra-Orthodox risks harming Netanyahu’s standing with the broader public, leaving him in a bind as the country heads toward elections.

Why the ultra-Orthodox reject military service

Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years of military service, followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years.

Each year, roughly 13,000 ultra-Orthodox men reach the conscription age of 18, but less than 10% enlist, according to a parliamentary committee.

Faced with a severe shortages of soldiers, the military is looking to extend the period of mandatory service.

The ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society and are the fastest growing sector, have traditionally received exemptions if they are studying full-time in religious seminaries. The exemptions date back to the birth of the state in 1948, when a small number of students sought to revive the Jewish scholarship system after it was decimated by the Holocaust.

Those exemptions — and the government stipends many seminary students receive up to the age of 26 — have infuriated many Israelis. Israel is currently maintaining a simultaneous military presence in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, in addition to fighting a war with Iran, which has stretched its robust military to the breaking point.

The Supreme Court said the exemptions were illegal in 2017, but repeated extensions and government delay tactics have left them in place.

Among Israel’s Jewish majority, mandatory military service is largely seen as a melting pot and rite of passage. Many in the insular ultra-Orthodox community fear that military service would expose young people to secular influences.