Netanyahu’s Coalition Crisis: Buying Time As Committee Okays Draft Exemption Bill
Local Editor
"Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly averted-for now -a meltdown of his ruling coalition government as a legislative committee on Monday approved a draft bill to exempt religious settlers from military conscription.
Netanyahu's fragile coalition was sent into a tailspin last week when head of the so-called "ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism" [UTJ] party Yaakov Litzman threatened not to support the government's 2019 apartheid entity's budget if the exemptions bill was not approved, putting them at loggerheads with War Minister and head of the "Yisrael Beytenu" party Avigdor Lieberman, who vowed to vote down the legislation.
Meanwhile, Zionist Finance Minister and so-called "Kulanu" head Moshe Kahlon said he would step down from his post if the budget failed to pass.
Approval of the draft legislation by the Knesset's Ministerial Committee on Legislation on Monday morning came as part of a compromise reached between Netanyahu and leaders of his "ultra-Orthodox" coalition partners during last-ditch negotiations on Sunday evening.
As part of the compromise, the draft law would be put before the Knesset for a first vote this coming Wednesday, before the budget is passed, and then shelved until the next session of Knesset.
But the looming threat of early elections was far from quelled, as Lieberman and his party fellows remained steadfast in their rejection of the law and reports said that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit was expected to reject Netanyahu's hard-fought compromise.
The compromise deal was also rejected by the so-called "Yesh Atid" opposition party chief Yair Lapid, who called it "an insult".
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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