Times of Israel: Two parties to leave Israel government over draft dispute

The United Torah Judaism party’s Degel Hatorah faction threatened on Monday to withdraw from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, warning that it will do so within the day unless it is presented with a draft of a bill exempting yeshiva students from military service, Report informs via The Times of Israel.

Speaking with Channel 12 news, a party source cautioned that “the next few hours are definitely the last to save the prime minister. If a draft law is not submitted in the next few hours, the decision will be made.”

In making its threat, Degel Hatorah joined fellow ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which reportedly threatened to resign from the government within days, as the July 27 start of the Knesset summer recess approaches without any progress having been made on the conscription issue.

While some reports said that Shas would bolt after UTJ, others indicated that the two parties are fully coordinated and will quit at the same time. Both parties were set to discuss the issue during their respective faction meetings Monday afternoon.

Despite the fact that Shas has previously worked behind the scenes to avoid dissolving the government, a UTJ source told Channel 12 that Shas chairman Aryeh Deri was “applying very heavy pressure to immediately withdraw from the coalition” — apparently on UTJ — and “doesn’t want to do it alone, so that they don’t say he is the one bringing down the government.”

According to national broadcaster Kan, two of Degel Hatorah’s senior rabbinic leaders sent a letter to party MKs instructing them that “in the absence of a law by this evening, Degel Hatorah will immediately withdraw from the government.”

The letter was sent by rabbis Moshe Hirsch, the dean of Bnei Brak’s Slabodka yeshiva, and Dov Lando, the senior leader of the so-called Lithuanian stream of non-Hasidic ultra-Orthodoxy. Both are members of the faction’s ruling Council of Torah Sages.