{"id":543940,"date":"2026-07-16T07:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/543940\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T07:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:03:11","slug":"likud-mk-announces-resignation-says-party-has-been-hijacked-by-haredi-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/543940\/","title":{"rendered":"Likud MK announces resignation, says party has been ‘hijacked’ by Haredi interests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Likud MK Dan Illouz announced Wednesday that he would resign, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s party had \u201cbeen hijacked\u201d amid the recent raft of controversial legislation the coalition has pushed through the Knesset, aimed at appeasing the ultra-Orthodox parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI simply cannot call on you to vote for a party that I myself am no longer able to vote for,\u201d Illouz wrote in a post on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is, immediately after October 7, it was clear to everyone that Netanyahu had to end his term,\u201d he continued. \u201cInstead of standing before the public and asking for forgiveness, the Likud is doing everything to evade responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom evading responsibility for October 7, to promoting schemes ]exempting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service[ while our voters are collapsing in the reserves, to surrendering to interest groups that are raising the cost of living for all of us. This is no longer the Likud Party. This is a party that has been hijacked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe draft exemption saga is a disgrace that made it clear to me that my place is no longer in the Likud,\u201d Illouz said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhile the IDF is warning of collapse under the burden, Likud has chosen continued surrender to the Haredi parties and promoted schemes to institutionalize evasion,\u201d he said, arguing that at this point, a vote for Likud is \u201cno different\u201d from a vote for Haredi parties Shas or UTJ.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not run in the Likud primaries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center), Justice Minister Yariv Levin (left), and Defense Minister Israel Katz (right), with ultra-Orthodox MKs Yitzchak Goldknopf, Moshe Gafni and Meir Porush behind them, seen in the Knesset shortly before the vote on a law banning arrests of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers and legitimizing ongoing mass ultra-Orthodox non-enlistment, July 14, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Illouz likely would have had a hard time being reelected anyway, as he was able to enter the Knesset through the Likud spot reserved for new immigrants \u2014 a benefit that would not have been available to him in the upcoming primaries.<\/p>\n

He joins a growing list of Likud defectors<\/a> citing the party\u2019s efforts to enshrine Haredi draft exemption, with a judge in the party\u2019s internal court announcing Wednesday that he is quitting the party for the same reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope, and will act, so that in the coming elections Likud is weakened and forced to ally with right-wing parties that have a moral backbone, which will not surrender to Haredi extortion,\u201d Emanuel Weiser, a judge on Likud\u2019s internal court, wrote in his resignation letter, according to a copy published by Hebrew media outlets.<\/p>\n

Illouz\u2019s and Weiser\u2019s departures came a day after the Knesset approved a controversial coalition-backed law<\/a>\u00a0temporarily banning the arrest and prosecution of ultra-Orthodox men evading military service, and thereby legitimizing continued mass Haredi non-enlistment.<\/p>\n

The High Court of Justice temporarily froze the implementation of the law on Wednesday, ordering that a hearing be held on the legislation as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

The Haredi legislative push comes after the High Court ruled unanimously in 2024 that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military since there was no legal framework to continue the decades-long practice of granting them blanket exemptions from army service.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Likud MK Dan Illouz announced Wednesday that he would resign, arguing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s party had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[49,244641,205967,42,21141,43,40,38,41,39,122898,205940],"class_list":["post-543940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-dan-illouz","tag-draft-evasion","tag-headlines","tag-likud","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ultra-orthodox-draft","tag-ultra-orthodox-parties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}