But their support was not enough – and for the first time in Israeli history, an ideologically divided coalition, including an Arab party, overthrew Netanyahu on Sunday. Yar Lipid, a centrist and architect of the new government, formed an impossible “transformation” government, including the Raam Islam Party, a coalition that spreads Israeli politics from right to left. Under the coalition agreement, Jewish nationalist Naphtali Bennett will be the new prime minister for the next two years. But Orthodox parties refused to back it, fearing that their claimant government was against “Jewish values.”
A day before the new government was sworn in, Shas Party leader and former interior minister Ariy Deriye warned that the new coalition would throw “all these values that the Jewish people have sanctified for thousands of years”. Bennett, who describes himself as religious, reacted strongly. “Ultra Orthodox MPs will not teach Judaism,” Bennett said.
For ultra-Orthodox parties, a major concern will be waning state financial support, with many of their educational and social institutions “existing solely thanks to such funding,” said Ilan Greilsammer, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University.
Many of the haredim study in state subsidised religious institutions called yeshivot rather than work.
Grylls Summer said Orthodox parties also face the loss of control of the powerful parliamentary finance committee that has been in place for years by UTJ legislators. The new finance minister is secular nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, who recently said that Ultra Orthodox should work with Netanyahu to “put him in a wheel and take him to the dump.”
Some fear that religious affairs could be taken out of their hands, and that it could be controlled by representatives of other sects of Judaism. The new government’s guidelines do not prioritize state and religion issues, with a vague goal of “strengthening Jewish identity.” Parliamentary War For the Orthodox, the new prime minister, who has a wise skull on his head, is a “reformist” Jew – their worst insult.
“We are fighting a parliamentary war against this alliance, which threatens the Jewish identity of the country,” said the former Shas lawmaker and rabbi Yossi Taeib. Taeib was particularly concerned that Bennett would push for the abolition of military service for religious students, allowing public movement on the Sabbath, and facilitating the conversion to Judaism.
Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers also fear that Bennett Lapid’s government will change its historic status since the formation of Israel in 1948. Where the religious aspects of public life are very much in line with Orthodox Judaism.
The first argument between the government and ultra-conservative parties could have raised fears of an investigation into the deaths of 45 people who were crushed during a religious pilgrimage to Mount Marin in April, almost all of them highly orthodox. Despite public pressure, Netanyahu’s government did not appoint a commission of inquiry after the ultra-Orthodox political leadership demanded that he be in charge of any investigation.
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