Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been hit by another internal rupture after the ultra-Orthodox Shas party said it would leave the cabinet over a dispute about military conscription exemptions for religious students. The move follows a similar resignation by United Torah Judaism and leaves the prime minister facing the possibility of a much weaker governing arrangement in parliament.
Shas said its representatives could not remain in government in good conscience after lawmakers failed to guarantee future exemptions for yeshiva students. The party also said it would not work to undermine the government from outside and would not necessarily support its collapse, but the cabinet exit is still a serious blow. Without Shas, Netanyahu’s coalition would fall to 50 seats in the 120-member Knesset, according to the BBC report.
The dispute over ultra-Orthodox service has become one of the most politically explosive issues in Israel after more than 21 months of war with Hamas in Gaza. Many Israelis object to a system that lets Haredi students avoid military service while others shoulder the burden. Ultra-Orthodox leaders counter that full-time Torah study is sacred and that compulsory service could pull young men away from religious life. The Supreme Court ordered an end to the exemption last year, but parliament has not been able to agree on a replacement bill that satisfies both sides.
The timing increases the pressure on Netanyahu. The Knesset is about to enter a three-month recess, giving him a window of time but also postponing any easy parliamentary fix. The evidence in the packet suggests that the government hopes the Shas and UTJ departures will not immediately trigger a collapse, yet the political cost is clear: the coalition’s internal discipline is weakening at the precise moment when the prime minister needs stability.
The cabinet change also reveals how the dispute has spread beyond abstract legal arguments into everyday governing. Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli said rabbis were angry at how the issue had been handled, while the party’s statement framed the refusal to settle the exemption question as a failure of trust. For Netanyahu, the challenge is no longer simply persuading one faction to stay; it is trying to hold together a coalition where the key ultra-Orthodox partners are signaling that they may vote with the government on some issues but no longer want to carry its political responsibility.
The BBC report supports a straightforward reading: this is not yet the fall of the government, but it is another major fracture in a coalition already under strain.
The cabinet exits also make the conscription fight harder to contain because the dispute has now moved from parliament into the machinery of government itself. Shas and UTJ are not yet saying they will topple Netanyahu, but their departures weaken his ability to claim a stable majority while the Knesset is in recess. That gives the prime minister time, but not certainty. If the draft issue stays unresolved, every legislative vote becomes a reminder that the coalition is more fragile than it looks.
