For the chareidi draft law, the time for talk is over

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Freshman MK Boaz Bismuth, who’s just been elected chair of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, is a Likud guy through and through — but he’s voted for United Torah Judaism in Tel Aviv municipal elections, which says something about his politics. He and I had a conversation about it several months ago.

“Why did I vote for UTJ?” Bismuth asked me rhetorically. “As someone who’s raising his kids here, I felt that we need to strengthen our Jewish identity, and UTJ was the most pro-Torah list on the ballot.”

Bismuth was elected by the Likud faction — with chareidi support — to replace Yuli Edelstein at the head of the defense committee. Outgoing chair Edelstein, a former Prisoner of Zion and current MK on behalf of the Likud, is blamed by the chareidim for stalling the draft law. Two years and 45 committee deliberations into the process of drafting the bill, the chareidim realized that Edelstein was playing them for suckers after he walked back the agreements he had reached with them on the eve of the Iran war.

Like so many of his Knesset colleagues, Bismuth began his career as a journalist. As editor-in-chief of Israel Hayom and a close associate of Republican mega-donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Bismuth had an open channel to the White House during the first Trump administration, and he’d had been picked by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to serve as ambassador to Mauritania in the past. Now a Likud MK, he’s been promoted to chair of the key defense committee in a last-ditch attempt to save the right-wing coalition from itself.

After resigning from the government, but stopping short of toppling it, the chareidim have made it clear that they won’t return to their posts until the legislation is brought to a vote. Edelstein’s dismissal, like that of former defense minister Yoav Gallant back in the day, has clarified Netanyahu’s intentions — he isn’t ready to give up on his coalition, which still has over a year in office left. But as far as the chareidim are concerned, the time for talk is over. Starting now, only Netanyahu’s actions will matter.

UTJ is already divided between the Gur camp, which rejects the understandings reached with Edelstein before the Iran war, and Degel HaTorah, which would be happy with legislation along the lines of that agreement. Already under pressure from their sister faction, Degel HaTorah has little incentive to come back until the legislation has been finalized.

Shas’s position is more nuanced, but Bibi is working on the assumption that it won’t return to the cabinet either until the legislative process has been completed — or at least has made it through the committee stage.

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With Bismuth’s appointment, a fascinating and very Israeli power struggle lies ahead. In accordance with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s directives (incidentally, she’s currently in the process of being fired by the government, though everyone knows that the High Court will step in to save her), the IDF will finish sending out draft orders to 54,000 yeshivah bochurim by the week after Tishah B’Av. The AG has instructed the IDF to enforce the orders and begin a wave of arrests as soon as they’ve been sent.

In tandem, the coalition will seek to fast-track the legislation of a new draft law, with the new chair of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee making clear that he intends to make use of Knesset procedure allowing him to convene the defense committee any time he sees fit, a privilege shared by no other Knesset committee.

The process will be contested at every step by state legal advisors, from the attorney general to the Knesset and Defense Committee legal advisors. Bismuth’s election was supposed to accelerate the process, since he’s already a member of the committee and has even chaired the committee’s subcommittee.

But journalistic sleuths have already checked how many of the committee’s 45 meetings regarding the draft law Bismuth attended — turns out he only showed up five times.

What this means is that the committee will have to meet regularly throughout the recess to prepare the bill for its second and third readings at the start of the Knesset’s winter session, after the chagim. That’s a tall order, but technically feasible if Netanyahu is genuinely determined to pass the legislation.

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Anyone who’s accompanied Netanyahu on his overseas trips will be familiar with his Shabbos shtick. He’ll often schedule visits for Friday so he “has to” stay the weekend, as it would be inappropriate for the Israeli prime minister to fly on Shabbos.

This week, Netanyahu exploited the sanctity of Shabbos to exclude rightist cabinet ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from an awkward decision. In the middle of Shabbos, the cabinet made the decision to begin daily humanitarian pauses in populated areas of the Gaza Strip, as well as to airdrop humanitarian aid.

All this happened within 24 hours of the collapse of the Doha talks and Trump’s recent comments about letting Israel finish the job in Gaza. Now, of all times, Netanyahu has decided to upgrade the humanitarian aid.

When Smotrich and Ben-Gvir asked why they hadn’t been informed, they were told, “We didn’t want you to violate the Shabbos.”

Ben-Gvir was furious, pointing out that he has a halachic heter to handle security matters on Shabbos, as cabinet minister Deri did way back in the days of Rav Ovadiah Yosef.

“You didn’t get us on the phone because you didn’t want to hear what we think,” Ben-Gvir angrily accused. “I’m telling you, this is a big mistake. You’re putting our soldiers in danger. Hamas will take advantage of this and operate within the humanitarian corridors. Trump told us to finish them off, and you’re expanding the aid. It’s crazy.”

The security cabinet was forced to make the decision after Hamas beat Israel in the public relations war, plastering global headlines with reports of Israel’s “starvation campaign.” With French president Emmanuel Macron moving toward recognition of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu had no choice but to increase aid to stave off international condemnation.

The question we started with — whether the draft law will be advanced during the summer recess — hinges largely on the war in Gaza. If Netanyahu believes that his government will fall anyway over Gaza, he’ll have little motive for a draft law to placate the chareidim. Henry Kissinger’s famous dictum is more relevant than ever: Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1072)