Ultra Orthodox leave government
Netanyahu’s majority now wobbles questionable
07/15/2025 – 03:16 a.m.Reading time: 3 min.
The ultra -orthodox party UTJ has declared its resignation from Israel’s government. Prime Minister Netanyahu has only a wafer -thin majority.
In Israel, the ultra-orthodox party united Tora Judaism (UTJ) explained its exit from the government coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu early Tuesday morning. The reason for the resignation is that a draft law for the liberation of Tora students was not accepted by military service.
In the late Monday evening, a group of UTJ, Degel Hatorah, had already announced the leaving of her MPs. According to the UTJ, a total of six of the seven members of the party, who made up the parliamentary factions Degel Hatorah and Agudat Jisrael, had explained their exit. Yitzhak Goldnopf, chairman of the UTJ, had resigned a month ago. A spokesman for gold button confirmed that a total of all seven UTJ Knessed members will leave the government.
Ultra Orthodox MPs of the Knesset have long threatened to leave the coalition due to the long-lasting dispute over the rejection of a draft law to exempt Tora students from military service. They always argued that a draft law to liberate the students was a central promise in their agreement to join the coalition at the end of 2022. Degel Hatorah said in a statement that after consultation with the upper rabbi and after the repeated violations of the government, they decided against their commitments to leave the coalition.
When the UTJ breaks away, Netanyahu has only a wafer -thin majority of 61 seats in the 120 seats, the Parliament. At first it was not clear whether Shas, another ultra -orthodox party, would follow the example of the UTJ. Both Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezhalel Smotrich initially excluded a new compulsory military service law at the last government formation, because they were dependent on the support of the ultra -orthodox UTJ and their sister party Shas, who together had 18 seats in the 120 seats.
So far, the head of government juggled exceptions from the military service and the demands of other members of his government to exclude the exceptions in times of war. When the coalition was formed in 2022, Netanyahu finally agreed to adopt a new conscription law that would have met the demands of the ultra -orthodox.
The Supreme Court of Court had tipped over the decades of exception for ultra -orthodox seminarians from the general compulsory compulsory obligation last year. The court had decided that the Ministry of Defense could no longer grant these people a flat -rate exemption for religious reasons and that the state has to begin the convening of ultra -orthodox Jewish students. The military then announced that he wanted to recruit around 3,000 ultra -orthodox annually.
In view of the war in the Gaza Strip and other missions, the Israeli military had announced the politically controversial convocation of 54,000 ultra -orthodox seminar students at the beginning of July this year. Special precautions should be taken due to religious concerns, but according to the military, the convening should begin in July.
Military service is mandatory for men and women in Israel at the age of 18. Ultra Orthodox men who study full -time in seminars have been exempt from conscription since the state was founded in 1948. Numerous attempts to collect them have always failed. However, very few ultra -orthodoxes still lived in Israel. In the meantime, their population has increased to 13 percent.
