Shas and United Torah Judaism announced Monday that they will not vote on any coalition legislation in the Knesset plenum until the daycare funding bill is brought to the agenda, escalating a coalition standoff that threatens to stall legislative business.
Shas and United Torah Judaism formally halted all coalition plenum votes Monday afternoon, implementing the threat they issued earlier in the day. The joint statement, published shortly after 15:30 Jerusalem, said the factions will not support any coalition-sponsored legislation until the daycare funding bill is brought to a vote. The move followed a final refusal by coalition chair MK Ofir Katz, who reiterated at 11:12 Monday that no majority exists for the bill, as The Zioneer reported at the time.
The escalation capped a day of mounting friction. At 10:54 Jerusalem, The Zioneer reported MK Moshe Gafni's personal threat to boycott votes, followed minutes later by the desk's publication of a coalition source confirming Katz's position and a broader Haredi warning that delaying the daycare bill would block all other coalition legislation. By 10:54, the formal joint statement had already been issued, though the actual cessation of votes came only in the afternoon.
The standoff began last Wednesday, when Likud opted not to advance both the daycare bill and the Basic Law: Torah Study in the same week, pushing the daycare vote to the current week to limit public backlash, according to earlier The Zioneer reports from Wednesday's coverage. A prior Wednesday item noted MK Yaakov Asher had withdrawn his banking bill as a legislative maneuver to force a daycare vote. The broader context includes opposition requests to delay debate on funding daycare for yeshiva students who do not serve in the military, as the desk reported on Jun 10.
What remains unverified is whether the coalition leadership will negotiate a compromise or has a contingency plan before other bills reach the plenum floor.
4 developments
- StrongUTJ furious as coalition delays daycare funding vote; Gafni lashes out at Likud
- DevelopingShas and Degel HaTorah Torah Study Basic Law bills diverge in Knesset vote schedule
- StrongDaycare subsidy bill will not be brought to a vote this week
- StrongCoalition chair again tells Haredi MKs: no majority for daycare bill today
Source and signal
- Internal intake