Israeli ultra-Orthodox parties, are again testing the unity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government with a challenge over education funding.
Parties Have Differences With Coalition Partners
These parties are already at odds with coalition partners over demands to draft young religious men into the army.
The latest rift revolves around an ultra-Orthodox push for schools in their separate education system to receive benefits at par with state-run schools.
Cause Of Rift
“For a year we have been fighting for the entry of ‘New Horizon’ into ultra-Orthodox institutions, said ultra-Orthodox Education Minister Haim Biton.
The “New Horizon”programme adds school hours and sharply hikes teacher pay.
He said that there is no reason for our teachers to be discriminated against.
Biton, a member of Shas, one of two Israeli Orthodox parties in the right-wing coalition, said they would not quit the government over the issue.
UTJ To Boycott Votes In Parliament
Ultra-Orthodox Israeli political alliance, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), has said that until the funding issue was resolved it would boycott votes in parliament.
Coalition whip Ophir Katz said he was working to avert a showdown ahead of a vote on a 3.4 billion shekel ($918.35 million) budget boost to help fund tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes by rocket fire from Lebanon.
The dispute is the latest of many that have highlighted both the tensions within Netanyahu’s unwieldy coalition through almost two years of near-constant crisis punctuated by mass protests against judicial reforms and the Gaza war.
With a grouping of religious and hardline nationalist-religious parties and his own right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu controls 64 of parliament’s 120 seats.
However, relations between ministers have been fractious from the start.
Nature of The Coalition
Far-right parties led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have repeatedly shaken the coalition over many issues.
These include the handling of the Gaza war, threatening to leave over any move, backed by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, toward a deal to end the conflict.
The ultra-Orthodox parties have been less vocal about the conduct of the war.
They have however fought hard for benefits for their Haredi community, who comprise around 13% of the population.
Tensions have run especially high over the recent abolition of an exemption long enjoyed by Haredi men from conscription into the military under a ruling by the Supreme Court.
Education Budget
The Israeli education budget has also caused problems.
“The Haredi parties feel that the extreme right secured all of its demands from the government and Ben-Gvir gets whatever he wants from the prime minister, while they are failing,” said Gilad Malach, director of the Israel Democracy Institute’s ultra-Orthodox programme.
Netanyahu’s government is likely to face a reckoning at the polls over the security failures that allowed the October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas from Gaza to happen.
But even so, such tensions contain the seeds of future problems, Malach said.
“It might begin a process that all parties don’t want right now but that might be the result.”
(With Inputs From Reuters)
