The dilemma of the Haredi parties with the Draft Law

There is an interesting development happening with the draft law.

The Haredi parties need the law to pass. If it doesn't, the time granted by the Supreme Court will soon expire and without a new law in place, as of September all yeshiva students over 18 would be considered illegal and could be arrested as being AWOL.

However, they dont particularly like the current proposal, as it includes financial sanctions and increased quotas, but it is the best proposal to date so they could live with it. However, they also don't want to be seen as voting in favor fo a law that would require a certain number of boys to go to the army, nor for a law that would put financial sanctions on yeshivas for not meeting the quotas.

The Haredi MKs came up with a brilliant solution. They figured they can abstain from voting on the law. Just disappear. This way they will not be seen as supporting it. They know the law will pass anyway, because the coalition will support it, and even without having enough votes due to the Haredi parties not voting, they know many in the opposition will also jump at the opportunity to vote for the draft law, specifically Yesh Atid and Meretz. They have done this before, when supporting a law but not wanting to give the appearance of supporting it. It is a creative solution.

The opposition parties are wising up. They want to bring the government down. Leaders of some of the Opposition parties are speaking up saying that they will not play along. They are talking about voting against the law, even if they might be ok with it, just to stick it to the coalition. If the Opposition stays strong, as it should take the opportunity to be effective, and votes against, they will put the Coalition in a very precarious place. On the one hand, they might actually cause the government to lose the vote, and that could lead to elections. On the other hand, the Haredim can't really let that happen and might decide to vote for it, and that would change their image forever.

Next week's vote on this draft law will be interesting.

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