Controlling the Coalition’s Collapse

Last week, prominent Ashkenazi Haredi leaders declared an end to their longstanding alliance with Netanyahu. The coalition chairman submitted a bill to dissolve the Knesset and head to early elections. But these developments are more complex—and less dramatic—than they appear at face value.

Background: Throughout the tenure of this government, the Haredi parties have demanded legislation formalizing the military exemption for yeshiva students—legislation they were promised as a condition of joining the government. Netanyahu has repeatedly deferred, citing the judicial overhaul fight (which the Haredim supported for the purpose of insulating a draft exemption from judicial intervention), then the Gaza war, then Operation Roaring Lion against Iran. Three and a half years have passed without the legislation advancing past a first reading. 

The politics have also grown more fraught: since October 7, with the IDF fighting on multiple fronts, a sweeping Haredi exemption has become untenable for a significant swathe of right-wing voters and coalition MKs.

How we got here: This crisis has been escalating for nearly a year. In June 2025, the opposition submitted a bill to dissolve the Knesset amid signals that United Torah Judaism, the Ashkenazi Haredi party, would support it in protest over the lack of progress on a draft law. The rabbinic leadership of Degel HaTorah, the Litvak (non-Hassidic) faction of UTJ, initially ordered MKs to support dissolution but then backed down. Its Hasidic counterpart, Agudat Yisrael, broke coalition discipline to vote in favor—a rare break between UTJ’s two factions. By July 2025, both UTJ factions had formally quit the government and coalition, and Shas had resigned from its government posts while remaining in the coalition. 

The equilibrium cracks: Last week, Rabbi Dov Lando—the spiritual leader of the Litvak Haredi sect—issued a written declaration that the government had lost his community’s confidence and that “all kinds of talk about a bloc no longer exists.” Within 24 hours, Coalition Chairman MK Ofir Katz introduced a dissolution bill at Netanyahu’s behest.

This is an attempt by Netanyahu to control the coalition’s collapse and the timeline for elections. His priority would be to maximize the government’s lifespan and have elections in October, in order to buy more time to advance the coalition’s legislative agenda, such as Shlomo Karhi’s media reform and the bill to split the attorney general’s role. Netanyahu may also be seeking to buy time for greater military success in Gaza, Iran, or Lebanon that he can campaign on as a decisive victory. The Haredim, by contrast, prefer elections in September just before Rosh Hashana, which they believe will maximize turnout in their community. 

In parallel, this week Netanyahu has embarked on a last-ditch effort to drum up support in the Likud faction for passing the draft law. While unlikely to succeed, this attempt could help Netanyahu preserve his political bloc through the upcoming elections by signaling to the Haredim that he remains committed to their agenda.

Parsing apart the apparent schism: Heading into the elections, the longstanding alliance between the Likud and the Haredim has reached a breaking point over the draft law. Yet the Haredi parties aren’t a monolith; each one has a slightly different positioning regarding the future of the right-wing/religious bloc:

• Agudat Yisrael, the Hassidic faction of UTJ, has taken the most hardline stance on the draft law and continues to express the most frustration with Netanyahu. Yitzhak Goldknopf, the party’s leader and a freshman MK, resigned from the government and pulled his party from the coalition last summer. Motti Babchik, an influential political operative from the Gur Hassidic sect, was a driving force behind this move and has been working behind the scenes to undermine Netanyahu’s hegemony over the Haredi parties and engage the opposition.
• Degel HaTorah, UTJ’s Litvak faction, is where the recent shift happened. Dov Lando reportedly issued his declaration against Netanyahu after speaking with Babchik. Moshe Gafni, the party’s leader in the Knesset, is beholden to the party’s rabbinic leadership, despite his personal political interest in preserving his longstanding partnership with Likud.
• Shas, the Sephardic Haredi party, now finds itself in a predicament. It is the largest Haredi party and the only one of the three whose base includes right-wing, traditional Israelis who aren’t necessarily Haredi themselves. A pillar of the right-wing bloc, Aryeh Deri has long been a trusted confidant of Netanyahu and is included in high-level policy discussions despite not even being a minister. Yet he has historically acted in close coordination with the Litvaks, who helped facilitate Shas’ establishment in 1984. Deri’s worst-case scenario is having to choose between Netanyahu and his Haredi counterparts.

Looking ahead: As serious as the draft-law spat may be, it is hardly a cause to write an obituary for the Netanyahu-Haredi alliance. While the Hassidim may flirt with the opposition parties to ramp up pressure on Netanyahu, the anti-Netanyahu bloc is even less inclined to deliver Haredi policy priorities like a draft exemption. Heading into the elections, Netanyahu’s priority will be to preserve his bloc at all costs by signaling to the Haredim that he remains committed to the alliance. Simultaneously, he will likely do his best to block Likud MKs who have been vocal against the draft law, such as Yuli Edelstein and Dan Ilouz, from realistic slots on the party’s slate for the next Knesset.