By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel’s parliament is set to hold a preliminary vote on Wednesday to dissolve itself following a dispute over conscription, a first step that could lead to an early election, which polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would lose.
The vote could still be pulled at the last minute, and even if it goes against Netanyahu, it would only be the first of four needed to bring forward elections.
This would give Netanyahu’s ruling coalition further time to resolve its worst political crisis yet and avoid a ballot, which would be Israel’s first since the eruption of the war with Hamas in Gaza.
Dissolving the Knesset would only be a victory for Israel’s enemies, said Boaz Bismuth, a lawmaker with Netanyahu’s Likud party. “During war this is the last thing Israel needs,” he told Reuters.
Netanyahu has been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.
Some religious parties in Netanyahu’s coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.
The exemptions have been a hot-button issue in Israel for years but have become particularly contentious during the war in Gaza, as Israel has suffered its highest battlefield casualties in decades and its stretched military is in need of more troops.
Growing increasingly impatient with the political deadlock, ultra-Orthodox coalition factions have said they will vote with opposition parties in favour of dissolving the Knesset and bringing forward an election that is not due until late 2026.
“It’s more than ever urgent to replace Netanyahu’s government and specifically this toxic and harmful government,” said Labour’s opposition lawmaker Merav Michaeli. “It’s urgent to end the war in Gaza and to bring back all the hostages. It’s urgent to start rebuilding and healing the state of Israel.”
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Opposition parties are likely to withdraw the dissolution bill if Netanyahu’s coalition resolves the crisis before the vote is held much later on Wednesday.
But even if it passes Wednesday’s reading, the bill’s final approval requires three more votes, giving Netanyahu’s coalition more time to come to agreements over conscription.
If passed, the dissolution bill will next go to parliament committee discussions in between readings, a legislation process which could take days, weeks or months. In this time, Netanyahu could still reach agreements with the ultra-Orthodox parties, his key political allies, and shoot the bill down.
To pass the final reading, the bill would need an absolute majority of at least 61 votes in the 120-seat parliament, called the Knesset in Hebrew, and an election will have to be held within five months.
Successive polls have predicted that Netanyahu’s coalition would lose in an election, with Israelis still reeling over the security failure of Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7 2023 attack and hostages still held in Gaza.
Hamas’ surprise attack led to Israel’s deadliest single day and shattered Netanyahu’s security credentials, with 1,200 people killed and 251 hostages taken into Gaza.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza has since killed almost 55,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave, left much of the territory in ruins, and its more than two million population largely displaced and gripped by a humanitarian crisis.
Twenty months into the fighting, public support for the Gaza war has waned. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat there, adding to anger many Israelis feel over the ultra-Orthodox exemption demands even as the war drags on.
Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, however, see full-time devotion to religious studies as sacrosanct and military service as a threat to the students’ strict religious lifestyle.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Crispian Balmer, William Maclean)
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