Netanyahu recovers from surgery as government crisis deepens, threatening new elections

The Haredim are threatening to oppose the budget if the draft exemption law is not advanced, and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir continues to threaten that members of his faction will also oppose it; If the government is unable to pass a budget for next year then the Knesset is dissolved automatically and goes to new elections

Yuval Karni, Gad Lior, Shilo Freid|
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying in the hospital recovering from the prostate surgery he underwent Sunday night, his coalition partners have increased the pressure and escalated the government coalition crisis.
The Haredim, in this case the Gur Hasidic faction, are threatening to oppose the state budget if the draft exemption law is not advanced. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also threatened Monday morning that if Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich does not increase the budget for police salaries members of his faction will on Tuesday oppose the trapped profits law, that will enable the state to collect tax on the estimated 150 billion shekels of trapped profits held in personal service companies. At the same time, the opposition is refusing offsets in preparation for the proposal of a law that is supposed to bring about 10 billion shekels into the state coffers, and the coalition currently does not have a majority.
2 View gallery
 Smotrich, Netanyahu, Eichler and Ben-Gvir
 Smotrich, Netanyahu, Eichler and Ben-Gvir
Smotrich, Netanyahu, Eichler and Ben-Gvir
(Photos: Motti Kimchi, Yariv Katz, Alex Kolomoisky, Reuters)
All of this is happening while the prime minister is recovering from surgery. Professor Ofer Gofrit, director of the urology department at Hadassah, updated Sunday evening that the surgery went as planned and that the prime minister woke up from anesthesia and is in good condition. "Everything, thank God, went smoothly. There is no suspicion of malignancy or cancer. It's all a benign prostate that was removed, and we only hope for the best," he said.
Meanwhile, even if we put aside the campaign to oust the attorney general, the pressure on Netanyahu is increasing. It is precisely after the coalition expansion that he is having difficulty managing his partnership with the right, and senior government officials claim: "We must put an end to this." Coalition officials accuse the Haredim of "irrational" behavior, and Ben-Gvir of promiscuous conduct. Ben-Gvir, for his part, accuses Smotrich of vindictiveness, but at the same time also criticizes the National Insurance Law, which is costing the coalition about 4 billion shekels.
Knesset Member Israel Eichler of United Torah Judaism has already decided to vote against the budget. "The government is going against the Haredi public in everything," said a confidant. "He said at faction meetings in recent weeks that the budget should be voted against, and therefore he will vote against it tomorrow."
This behavior is shaking the coalition into the unknown. A senior government official told Ynet that "Ben-Gvir and the Haredim are simply a scandal. Every time something doesn't seem right to them, they threaten to oppose critical laws of the state budget. Sometimes it's the conscription law and sometimes the police salary. This leads us on a direct path to dissolving the coalition and bringing elections forward."
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הצבעה שנייה על התקציב במליאת הכנסת
הצבעה שנייה על התקציב במליאת הכנסת
There is little dfanger of Itamar Ben-Gvir getting kicked out of the government
(Photo: Danny Shem Tov, Knesset Spokesperson's Office)
Another source in the coalition claimed that right-wing voters will punish those who dismantle the government. "The right-wing public is watching, they see who is strengthening the camp and who is drilling holes in it in these historic days. The public will make them pay the price," he said.
And what happens if there is no majority?
If a majority is not found today for the Retained Earnings Law, which is expected to yield the Treasury 10 billion shekels in taxes in 2025, ministry officials are threatening to announce a "5 billion shekel cut in the budgets of all ministries."
A similar statement has been made before. Almost a week ago, senior officials in the Treasury Department said that "due to ego games, Ben-Gvir will himself cause cuts in the budgets of the police, welfare, education, health, infrastructure and budgets intended for post-war reconstruction. We will call this the 'Ben-Gvir Plot,' so that they will understand what he caused."
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Economic and political sources claim that what lies behind Ben-Gvir's decision is "a power struggle against Smotrich. He is trying to show how much he cares about the salaries of the police officers, unlike the minister and the heads of the Finance Ministry." Otzma Yehudit, in response, accused Smotrich of "a reckless decision to harm the salaries of the police officers and prison guards."
Despite this, Netanyahu is not expected to fire Ben-Gvir following his decision to vote against the coalition, and a coalition source explained that "the risk of such a move is too great." At the same time, the coalition also estimates that none of the partners really intend to break up the government, but that the goal is simply "to operate in a broken work environment with the aim of minimizing damage."
Now the question is: Will the coalition survive its two significant political minefields, the state budget and the draft exemption law? The answer is still unclear.
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