Netanyahu's haredi bargain: a lifeline that became a liability - analysis

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's last legislative push before the Knesset's dissolution on July 17 was supposed to secure his coalition's future. Instead, it may be its undoing. The legislative blitz, featuring the increasingly controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft exemption and Basic Law: Torah Study bill, was designed to keep the haredi parties locked in as his partners.However, in the weeks since the Knesset's dissolution, the coalition has been steadily slipping in opinion polls, meaning Netanyahu's alienation of his core base may have been for naught.As it stands, Netanyahu and his allies are losing votes according to the polls every week as the coalition has theoretically shed more than a dozen mandates since the bills passed.The centerpiece of the blitz was a pair of bills that had been stalled for months. One, the Basic Law: Torah Study, would enshrine the legal status of full-time yeshiva students, making it significantly harder for courts to challenge the arrangement going forward.The other, passed by a 58-54 vote on July 14, would temporarily freeze the arrest and prosecution of haredi men evading military service. Both bills moved only after haredi factions, United Torah Judaism and Shas, withheld their support from key bills to force the coalition's hand.The haredi parties, bar none, were the best at representing their constituents this past term. With the haredi faction holding a combined total of 18 seats, UTJ and Shas wielded their power wisely, threatening a boycott whenever they couldn't get their way while the coalition scrambled to appease them to maintain their precarious majority.Currently, the Torah Study law's fate is still unsettled: The High Court has temporarily frozen it, and without that freeze, more than 72,000 haredi men would have continued evading arrest.But the problem isn't truly the haredi parties as much as it is Netanyahu's reliance on them, and while the legislative blitz may have cemented their continued alliance, it also may have cost Netanyahu the role of prime minister.The political bargainIn the weeks since the Knesset's dissolution, Likud has continued to slip in the polls, barely holding up against Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar, which holds around 24 seats – a far cry from the 34 the party held in the previous term.Likud has not been the only party feeling the effects of the coalition's choices, as – with the exception of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit – every member party is polling at lower than the number of seats held in the last Knesset.It isn't surprising that Ben-Gvir – the champion of increased law enforcement – has gained voters, given how the past four years could have swayed Israelis in his direction.In 2022, Ben-Gvir promised tougher punishments for terrorists and to assert Jewish governance – which, like it or not, it's hard to deny he did, particularly when looking at his continued push for the alligator detention center, or all the towns he armed by loosening gun ownership criteria.On the other hand, Netanyahu promised to take down Hamas, and while the IDF continuously expressed its need for new recruits, he gave over 72,000 eligible men a free pass to avoid the fight.But fear not, Netanyahu said, because instead of sharing the burden equally in this country, we can just pile more work onto the already exhausted soldiers nearing the end of their mandatory service by extending said service from 30 to 32 months.When the bill to extend mandatory service passed, IDF representatives told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the military is facing a shortage of approximately 12,000 soldiers – a lot less than the 72,000 available, but surely the reservists can continue to carry the brunt of it all, as they have for over 1,000 days of war, right?The judicial overhaul fight of 2023 was, for most Israelis, an argument about institutions, meaning it was real but felt distant from daily life.The draft issue isn't. It shows up in every aspect of every life: You either are someone or know someone who serves, with regular units left almost continuously on the line rather than rotating between operational duty, training, and recovery.Judicial reform asked voters to weigh in on courts and legislative power. The draft fight asks reservists to weigh their own exhaustion against a law written to protect people who don't have to serve at all – a comparison that doesn't require an explainer to land.The alliance cracksEisenkot and the Zionist opposition didn't need to invent a campaign issue; the coalition handed him one.Eisenkot vowed he wouldn't bend “even if it means going to another election,” and the payoff shows up in the numbers: Eisenkot has consistently grown in the polls, and if elections were held next week, the Zionist opposition would have minimal issues building a coalition.Even haredi leadership has started hedging. Shas's spiritual leader, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, said Netanyahu “won't repent” and suggested Eisenkot might, floating the idea of Shas breaking from the bloc entirely. When a coalition partner is publicly window-shopping for your replacement, the “campaign weapon” framing understates it.The election is still several weeks out, and Netanyahu has survived predicted collapses before. He has dedicated his life to Israeli politics, and it's important not to count him out too early.What's different this time lies in the shape of his downfall.It isn't only the opposition landing blows; over half of Israelis now say they want Netanyahu to step down, with the coalition down to under 50 seats and the opposition eyeing a proper majority, and a clear majority of citizens opposing haredi parties being included in whatever government forms next.That's not a verdict on Gaza policy or October 7 accountability; it's a verdict on the trade Netanyahu made to keep his coalition alive long enough to reach an election. He got the votes he needed in the Knesset. Whether he gets them at the ballot box is the real question.■