If this crisis brings down the government, it will be Ben Gvir who takes the decisive step
The Israeli government is determined to reject a deal and continue fighting until total victory — if not on the all-important Gaza front, then within the halls of the Knesset.
The defense minister’s announcement that the IDF will begin sending draft orders to yeshivah students next month, along with the immediate response from Shas and litvish roshei yeshivah, temporarily sidelined another bitter conflict within the coalition: Minister of Public Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who’s holding up Knesset votes of importance to Shas, versus Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, who’s blocking Ben Gvir’s entrance to any sort of security cabinet with authority over the war.
Last week brought the crisis into the open, with Itamar Ben Gvir announcing that he would vote against a coalition bill regulating the status of Israel’s city and chief rabbis. Usually, when the coalition is divided on a critical bill, the Knesset looks like a beehive, with senior coalition figures and their aides bustling to and fro between the prime minister’s office and the plenum. Knesset guards surround the VIP-packed area, and the tension can be cut with a knife, even in the corridors.
In the recent crises between Shas and Otzma Yehudit, the atmosphere in the building was not one of tension but of despair. The staircase connecting the Knesset plenum to the government floor was conspicuously empty, with both Shas and Otzma Yehudit refusing to meet or talk with Netanyahu, highlighting the prime minister’s loss of control.
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