Otzma Yehudit and haredi parties negotiating to pass series of controversial measures

The far-right Otzma Yehudit party is negotiating with the two haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, in an attempt to cut a deal to pass a number of controversial bills and measures this week, before the Knesset sets out on its three-month summer recess on Sunday, an Otzma Yehudit spokesperson confirmed on Monday.

The first bill on the table is a controversial bill promoted by Shas. The bill is scheduled to reach the Knesset plenum for its first reading on Tuesday, after being blocked by Otzma Yehudit approximately two weeks ago, and causing a crisis in the coalition. The bill stipulates that the government can create and fund jobs in municipalities and regional councils that provide religious services, in addition to jobs provided by the municipality itself. Shas has said that the bill's purpose is to increase religious services, but opponents of the bill have argued that its real intention is to enable Shas, which controls the religious affairs ministry, to appoint an unlimited amount of its members to government-paying jobs.

Two weeks ago, Otzma Yehudit chairman, National Security Minister MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, conditioned his party's support for the bill on him being appointed part of the prime minister's inner circle responsible for making decisions regarding the war against Hamas. However, the bill is on the agenda for Tuesday's plenum. At the same time, the Knesset's Wednesday agenda includes an item that did not come up for a vote in April due to opposition from the haredi parties, and is important to Ben-Gvir: to move the National Unit for Enforcing Planning and Construction Laws from the finance ministry to Ben-Gvir's National Security Ministry.

The unit was formed in 2017 as part of a law known as the Kamenetz Law, whose purpose was to tighten enforcement of illegal construction, especially in the Arab sector. The unit, which has the authority to hand out fines and other sanctions for construction violators, has been under the auspices of the finance ministry, but the Likud agreed in coalition agreements signed in November 2022 that the unit will move to Ben-Gvir's ministry. Ben-Gvir has promoted stricter enforcement against construction violations, especially amongst Bedouin nomads in the South, and having the unit under his auspices will give him more power over it.

A spokesperson for Otzma Yehudit denied the existence of a deal between Otzma Yehudit and Shas, where the former would support Shas's religious services law, in exchange for the unit moving to Ben-Gvir's ministry. However, a very similar deal fell through in April, when Ben-Gvir refused to support a different bill important to the haredi parties: the "Kosher Cellphone" bill.   

The Kosher Cellphone bill anchors in law the Rabbinic Committee for Communication's ability to control some 500,000 users of what are known as "kosher cellphones." The committee, which is comprised of representatives from most of Israel's haredi factions, was formed in 2005 in an attempt to counter the "threat" of smartphones. The committee achieved this by cutting deals with cellular providers to reserve certain phone numbers for phones known as "kosher phones" – i.e., not smartphones – and to prevent users from shifting the same phone number to a different device. The committee could thus determine via a user's phone number whether or not he or she belonged to what they called the "kosher platform."

Kroyzer comes around to the bill

Ben-Gvir's representative in the Economics Committee, Yizhak Kroyzer, at first opposed the bill last week but eventually dropped his reservations, and the bill passed a preliminary vote and is now set for a final vote in the Knesset plenum. Lo and behold, the bill is on Wednesday's agenda as well, and could well be part of the deal that will give Ben-Gvir the National Unit for Enforcing Planning and Construction Laws.

In the meantime, the Arab party members strongly oppose the unit becoming part of Ben Gvir's ministry, and may attempt to make offers to the haredim to support their bills instead of Ben-Gvir, in exchange for them promising to oppose his takeover of the unit. The haredi parties have said in the past that they would not cooperate with the Arab parties, but the two parties, which represent Israel's largest two minorities, have cooperated in the past, and may do so again this week.