{"id":553582,"date":"2026-07-22T06:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T06:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/553582\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T06:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T06:43:11","slug":"israel-election-2026-netanyahu-turns-on-haredi-allies-after-draft-deal-backfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/553582\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel election 2026: Netanyahu turns on Haredi allies after draft deal backfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

After advancing the \u201cHaredi deal\u201d, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed course following the electoral damage it caused to Likud, and as part of the current election campaign.<\/p>\n

\"\u05de\u05dc\u05d9\u05d0\u05ea<\/a>\"\u05de\u05dc\u05d9\u05d0\u05ea<\/p>\n

Benjamin Netanyahu and Shas Party leader Aryeh Deri in the Knesset plenum <\/p>\n

(Photo: Amit Sha’avi)<\/p>\n

The goal is to distance himself from the Haredi parties before the election and return to the political alliance with them afterward.<\/p>\n

During the last term, and especially during the crises over the draft exemption law, Netanyahu avoided attacking the Haredi parties or the extremist factions in the Haredi public that opposed the law, even regarding those who do not study in yeshiva. Likud officials said Netanyahu\u2019s legislative \u201cbear hug\u201d of the Haredim in the latest legislation caused electoral damage mainly among the mainstream and moderate right-wing public.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu was especially careful to avoid criticizing the Haredim during the Knesset\u2019s summer session, out of fear they would support a bill to dissolve the Knesset without coordinating with him. But after the Knesset dispersed, the official line changed.<\/p>\n

When Mordechai Halperin, Army Radio\u2019s religion and Haredi affairs correspondent, quoted associates of Lando, Netanyahu adviser Yonatan Urich rushed to respond and suggested that the Haredim stay quiet until after the election.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us suggest this: The political operators on their behalf should shut their mouths for 99 days so we can win the election,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"\u05e0\u05ea\u05e0\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5<\/a>\"\u05e0\u05ea\u05e0\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5<\/p>\n

Moshe Gafni and Netanyahu<\/p>\n

It is no coincidence that Urich suggested the operators stay silent for 99 days. He, too, knows that the day after the election Netanyahu will need them.<\/p>\n

But this rhetoric is neither accidental nor a one-time occurrence. In a podcast with Avi Shushan, Netanyahu suddenly remembered to condemn the slogan \u201cWe will die and not enlist,\u201d even though it had been repeated at every Haredi demonstration throughout the last term.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe phrase \u2018we will die and not enlist\u2019 is a terrible phrase that deserves every condemnation,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cIt is out of the question. All the impostors must be dealt with unequivocally.\u201d<\/p>\n

After giving them everything they asked for, Netanyahu claimed: \u201cI take a 20-kilo club and say to Deri and Gafni, \u2018This is out of the question.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs also said Wednesday morning at the Katif Conference that \u201cthe draft law did not pass because Rabbi Lando blocked it at the last minute. Anyone who thinks that in the next term we will give the Haredim a blank page without sanctions and significant enlistment targets \u2014 then there will be no law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the current government, even though the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, headed by Yuli Edelstein, drafted a law with sanctions and significant enlistment targets, as Fuchs described, Netanyahu worked to thwart it \u2014 and even fired Edelstein so he could soften the law and meet the Haredi parties\u2019 demands.<\/p>\n

During the Knesset\u2019s final week of legislation, Netanyahu worked vigorously to complete the political deal with the Haredim revealed by ynet, though he chose to absent himself from the votes themselves, apparently so he could distance himself from them in the future. Now that the Knesset has dispersed, he understands the damage that has been done, is working to change course and is sending a message completely different from the steps he took during the current term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After advancing the \u201cHaredi deal\u201d, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed course following the electoral damage it caused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-553582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553582","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=553582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}