MKs Ohad Tal and Moshe Solomon of the Religious Zionism party on Tuesday morning announced that they would vote against a bill to subsidize daycares.
With their announcement, it now seems that the coalition will not have the majority necessary to pass the bill and avoid a crisis with the Knesset's haredi parties.
The move follows a statement by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman, MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud), who said that he will not support the Daycare Bill or similar bills aimed at circumventing the requirement haredi yeshiva students to enlist in the IDF.
"I will not lend my hand to the Daycare Law, or to any law which attempts to circumvent our endless efforts to expand the draft base in the State of Israel, and to reduce the burden on our excellent soldiers."
"The State of Israel is at war for over a year already, and we all appreciate the heroic efforts by the enlisted soldiers, the career soldiers, the reservists, and their families. But appreciation is not enough - we need to make every effort to bring the IDF additional soldiers and take off a tiny bit of the burden resting on the shoulders of the enlisted soldiers and reservists," Edelstein said.
In addition to Edelstein, MK Dan Illouz also announced his intention to vote against the bill, and MK Moshe Saada is weighing joining the pair. It is estimated that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will also find it difficult to support the bill.
Earlier this week, the United Right party announced that it would vote against the bill.
On Tuesday afternoon, MKs Tal and Solomon clarified: "The news published today was not published by us. We hope that we will manage to reach agreements on the matter with all members of the coalition."
Israel offers subsidies to low-income daycare families so long as the mother is working or studying a certain number of hours each week.
The subsidies are intended to support women's integration into the workforce, and encourage women to seek employment instead of staying home with their young children.
However, over the years it has been turned into a subsidy for low-income families, and the factor of women's employment has been set aside; years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that two male partners may decide which of them is considered the "wife" for the purposes of daycare subsidies, and that two men whose per-person household income qualifies for a subsidy may receive one despite the fact that neither man is a woman. Earlier this year, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara took this a step further, declaring that a working mother whose husband is a full-time yeshiva student should no longer be eligible for a daycare subsidy, since her husband is a "draft dodger" and therefore her children should not be eligible to receive State money.
Multiple sources have warned that such a move - especially without sufficient warning - would contradict the intent of the subsidy, and encourage low-earning haredi women to exit the workforce, further increasing poverty across Israel and negatively affecting the entire economy: Many of these women work in childcare, and if they left the workforce, less childcare would be available for higher-earning women, forcing many of them to leave the workforce as well and significantly decreasing Israel's GDP.
Under pressure from these sources, and the haredi parties in the Knesset, the coalition thus promoted a bill to ensure that daycare subsidies would be available to any woman whose income and employment hours qualified, regardless of how her husband is employed. Now, however, it is not clear that the bill will pass, since it is seen by many as simply a support for "draft-dodging."