Netanyahu's Government Survives Vote To Dissolve Israeli Parliament

The bill would have mandated military service for the ultra-Orthodox community, which had threatened to topple the government over a draft during wartime.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government survived an attempt to dissolve Israel’s parliament early Thursday morning, with most of his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners joining him in voting against a bill that would have forced them to register for military service while the country is at war.

The vote was the most serious challenge to Netanyahu’s government since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which was the biggest security failure in Israel’s history and triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. The bill’s failure means that no other piece of legislation to dissolve parliament, called the Knesset, can be submitted for at least six months, shoring up Netanyahu’s embattled coalition.

The ultra-Orthodox parties are furious that the government has failed to pass a law exempting their community from mandatory military service. The issue has long divided the Jewish Israeli public, especially during the 20-month war in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s opposition had hoped that the public anger over the exemptions would help topple the government. But just two of the 18 ultra-Orthodox members of the Knesset supported the bill.

Most ultra-Orthodox legislators agreed to vote against the bill after Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein said that he and the ultra-Orthodox parties had reached an understanding on the basis of a new draft law, which they will continue discussing over the coming week.