Centrists abandon Benjamin Netanyahu to leave Israeli government in limbo
Kadima walks out on coalition over Likud's refusal to draft ultra-orthodox Jews into military
Donald Macintyre
Donald Macintyre writes political sketches for The Independent, having been Jerusalem correspondent since 2004, covering Israel and the Occupied Territories, as well as travelling for the paper to Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Libya and Egypt. As Political Editor and then Chief Political Commentator, he previously covered the John Major and early Tony Blair era. He has written for the Daily Express, Sunday Times, Times and Sunday Telegraph, and Sunday Correspondent. He is the author of Mandelson and the Making of New Labour (2000).
Jerusalem
Wednesday 18 July 2012
Related articles
The broadened coalition formed by Benjamin Netanyahu just ten weeks ago ended yesterday when the centrist Kadima party walked out in protest over the terms of drafting ultra-orthodox men into military service.
Kadima's Knesset members voted 25-3 in favour of their leader Shaul Mofaz's decision to pull the party out of the government and leave his post of Deputy Prime Minister after the breakdown of negotiations aimed at resolving one of the most contentious internal issues in Israeli politics.
The move reflects a clear preference by the Israeli Prime Minister and leader of the right wing Likud party for his ultra-orthodox allies over the secular, more moderate partners in Kadima.
Kadima had been pressing for legislation to pave the way for around 6,000 young ultra-orthodox men to be drafted into the Israel Defence Forces or civilian service per year. It rejected a much more gradual and limited proposal by Mr Netanyahu.
Mr Mofaz, who made ending the wholesale exemption for those pursuing religious studies a central goal of his entry to the coalition, opened a meeting of his Knesset faction by telling MPs: "With great distress, I say there's no escape but to take the decision to leave the coalition. It was not easy to enter the government ……but there's no escape from the need to break away." The immediate effect of the collapse of the largest ever coalition in Israel's history — as well as one of the most short-lived — will be to leave the Netanyahu government with a much narrower but still stable majority of 66 out of the Knesset's 120 seats.
Kadima's departure, however, could well hasten elections, probably to January or February 2013, not least because of the difficulties of passing a budget with a smaller government majority in what would anyway be an election year. But the move is unlikely to affect the government's right wing tenor towards the occupation, Israeli settlements, and the dormant peace process with the Palestinians, which remained largely unchanged despite hopes by the US and Israel's other allies that it would be softened while Mr Netanyahu enjoyed a broader coalition.
This was illustrated yesterday when the military-appointed Board of Education covering the West Bank approved a far-reaching recommendation, heavily backed by Mr Netanyahu's Likud Education and Finance Ministers, to make the college in the settlement of Ariel into a fully-fledged university despite the strong opposition of many academic leaders in Israel itself.
The effect on the electoral fortunes of the now divorced coalition partners is less clear. Mr Netanyahu remains a consistently popular Prime Minister, though he now risks losing at least some votes among a body of secular electors – including on the centre and right – for whom drafting the ultra-orthodox is a highly salient issue.
But the future for Kadima is likely to be much more dire. While Mr Mofaz could pick up a handful of seats as a champion of drafting the ultra-orthodox, the polls suggested the party was in meltdown before it joined the coalition and there was widespread speculation yesterday that it could split or even disintegrate.
The exemptions for the ultra-orthodox from military service – and the benefits for those not working – date from the foundation of the state in 1948 when a few hundred were left to pursue their biblical studies to rebuild religious scholarship that had been wiped out by the Holocaust. But these numbers have now grown to around 60,000.
Opposing changes to the system, Rabbi Obadia Yosef, the hugely influential spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox party Shas, whose chairman Eli Yishai is Mr Netanyahu's Interior Minister, said on Saturday that without students at yeshivas – religious colleges – "the world would be destroyed". While acknowledging that the IDF "guards us", he added that "only the Torah" could protect Israel "from evil".
-
Stand by for another DECADE of wet summers, say Met Office meteorologists
-
Bosses of collapsed banks should be sent to jail, banking standards commission tells George Osborne
-
Feat of engineering: Incredible photographs show construction beneath New York's Second Avenue
-
World news in pictures
-
Google challenges US surveillance gagging order
- 1 Diary of Second World War German teenager reveals young lives untroubled by Nazi Holocaust in wartime Berlin
- 2 Bosses of collapsed banks should be sent to jail, banking standards commission tells George Osborne
- 3 Breaking the Silence: In the reality of occupation, there are no Palestinian civilians – only potential terrorists
- 4 Uri Geller psychic spy? The spoon-bender's secret life as a Mossad and CIA agent revealed
- 5 Vice pulls 'breathtakingly tasteless' fashion shoot glorifying the suicides of famous female authors from Sylvia Plath to Virginia Woolf
Get your summer started with British Military Fitness
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
How will you make today delicious?
Tell us how you plan to make today delicious and you could win a £50 M&S gift card.
Learn a new language
Add another string to your bow with Rosetta Stone, whether it's Spanish, Italian or Mandarin...
Making reading fun for kids
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Introducing the 'Get Reading' campaign
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Independent Dating
iJobs General
Ambitous PR Account Manager for Top London Agency!
£30000 - £35000 per annum: May & Stephens Recruitment Group: If you're an ambi...
PR Account Director - Top Healthcare Communications Agency
£43000 - £50000 per annum + £5K Car Allowance + Bens : May & Stephens Recrui...
PR Account Executive & Social Media Guru-Top Tech PR Agency!
£18000 - £22000 per annum + Bens : May & Stephens Recruitment Group: If you're...
Telesales Executive
£16000 - £23000 per annum + OTE £23k - £45k: Connex Education: Connex Educatio...
Day In a Page
First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention
Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title






