In the early hours of Monday morning amid air sirens, Israel’s Knesset voted to pass the largest state budget in Israel’s history, raising the defence budget to a record NIS 850.6 billion (£203.7 billion), with billions of shekels also allocated to Charedi educational institutions.According to Channel 13, the budget increased allocations to Charedi educational institutions by more than NIS 1 billion, from NIS 4.1 billion ($1.3 billion) to NIS 5.17 billion ($1.65 billion).
Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), the Knesset’s two major Charedi parties, had both threatened to pull their support for the coalition if the long-awaited conscription law was not passed first.
Had the budget failed to pass before Tuesday, it would have necessitated early elections.
However, following the outbreak of war with Iran, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the conscription bill would have to be shelved to allow the government to urgently implement the increase in defence spending, largely drawn from cuts across the board to other departments.
Opposition Leader, and Yesh Atid Chair, Yair Lapid, called the budget “the greatest theft in the history of the state” as the issue of the Charedi draft continues to cause a significant divide in Israeli society.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, widely considered the closest rival to have a chance at toppling incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu in elections, also criticised the budget and the allocations to the Charedi community.
“We are at war, and, when cuts are necessary, the people of Israel know how to bear them. But the government is doing something entirely different: looting the public purse,” he said in a video statement.
And Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, called the budget “a working plan for dismantling the State of Israel,” citing the funding for strictly Orthodox schools that “refuse to teach core curriculum subjects,” amid cuts to higher education, and allocations to West Bank settlements “in amounts exceeding those given to communities inside the Green Line”.
Nonetheless, the spending bill was passed by a margin of 62-55, with the support of the coalition and the Charedim.
But it appears a fresh row over conscription has only been delayed, as both Shas and UTJ reportedly conditioned their support on a government pledge to enshrine blanket exemptions from military conscription for yeshiva students.
The latest version of the bill, drawn up by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Chair Boaz Bismuth MK, would see significant compromises on conscription, including age limits on sanctions against draft dodgers.
It also contains a provision to count "security-oriented national service", including in the Shin Bet, prison service, and police, towards the enlistment quota.
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