A senior coalition member claimed that the haredi parties have doubled down on their demand for the passage of a full override clause during recent talks between coalition parties and have no intention of compromising on the issue, Israel Hayom reported.
The haredi parties are divided between the Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism party, led by Yitzhak Goldknopf, and the Sephardic Shas party, led by Aryeh Deri. UTJ is considered the more hardline of the two parties, while Shas is considered the more pragmatic party.
According to the report, Goldknopf and Deri's demand for an overrule clause is for a more general law that would allow the Knesset to repass any legislation struck down by the Supreme Court and not limited to the attempts to pass a Draft Law enshrining haredi students' exemptions from IDF service in law.
The coalition member said that "the Supreme Court has a special fondness for issues related to religion, and somehow we always lose there. There are quite a few examples, such as issues related to the Western Wall, the opening of supermarkets on Shabbat, the issues of conversions, kashrut, and more. It can be assumed that with the issue of [separate swimming hours for men and women at] the springs, the attorney general's demand that the policy be anchored in legislation will reach the Supreme Court, and you can imagine what the result will be. The Reasonableness Clause and the Judicial Selection Committee are important for the Likud, the overrule clause is important to us."
The haredi parties have issued an ultimatum stating that if the Draft Law is not passed immediately when the Knesset returns for its winter session, they will bring down the government and force new elections. Previous Draft Laws have been struck down by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the exemptions granted to haredi men from military service discriminate against other Israelis who have a legal obligation to serve.
The latest version of the Draft Law would lower the age of exemption from IDF service from 26 to 22 or 21. This would allow haredi men to join the workforce at a younger age instead of forcing them to remain in yeshivas until the age of 26, and is meant to combat high unemployment rates in the haredi sector.