In 2018, a bill was put before the Knesset to expand the number of Ḥaredim conscripted into the Israeli military, while still preserving some of the exemptions for yeshiva students. Because Avigdor Liberman—the head of the Jewish Home party—refuses to join a governing coalition absent a promise the bill will remain unchanged, while the ḥaredi parties will only join the coalition if it is modified, Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to form a governing coalition. Thus, new elections will be held in September. The former parliamentarian Yohanan Plesner, who served on the Knesset committee that produced an earlier version of the bill, comments:
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More about: Avigdor Liberman, IDF, Israeli politics, Ultra-Orthodox