The High Court’s deadline for settling the draft status of yeshivah students has expired, and they are now technically in legal limbo
Last week’s aftermath of the Knesset passage of the reasonableness bill offered a microcosm of the political situation. As Justice Minister Yariv Levin posed for a group selfie with grinning right-wing MKs, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was hurrying out of the plenum to his office on the floor below.
Netanyahu knew very well what was coming — wall-to-wall condemnations from the international community, his White House visit delayed, large-scale refusals to report for reserve duty, a plummeting shekel and stock market, and dire forecasts from credit rating agencies.
In the moments leading up to the vote, dramatic TV footage seemed to reveal a prime minister who had lost control of the situation. Sitting on either side of him, Levin and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant bickered openly, with the latter pleading that the former “throw them a bone.” Behind him, Deri and Smotrich were frantically huddling with politicians from both sides, trying to strike a last-minute deal. Deri, who had come directly from the president’s residence, had been trying without success to broker a compromise for the previous 24 hours.
Rarely does such intra-coalition wrangling unfold in front of the cameras. That usually takes place in the prime minister’s Knesset office or in the section of the plenum closed off to journalists.
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