There’s only one thing that’s more obvious than the tension and nervousness among the ultra-Orthodox as the moment of truth draws near in the battle over the bill that would see them drafted into the army — and that is the disappearance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the sparring arena. The echoes of the fundamental High Court ruling two weeks ago on Feb. 4, halting government funding for rabbinical colleges whose students defer their draft, are still resonating, as is the judges’ harsh criticism of the government, but Netanyahu has opted for silence. 

“I would have expected to hear from the prime minister that this is the right bill, and that this is the bill that will be voted into law,” Knesset member Ofer Shelah, chairman of the Yesh Atid Knesset faction, told Al-Monitor on Feb. 13. Shelah is the faction’s representative on the Shaked Committee, which, by next month, is supposed to complete legislation of the Equal Sharing of Burden law — Yesh Atid’s flagship issue. The main controversy now is whether the law will include criminal sanctions against ultra-Orthodox men who evade the draft. Yesh Atid is threatening to bolt the coalition unless the law includes such criminal-punitive measures.

“This is a major piece of legislation. This is the issue with which we went to the voters. This was what half the coalition negotiations, if not more, were about, and I would expect the prime minister to announce clearly and straightforwardly, without hemming and hawing, that this is the correct law, as far as he’s concerned; that this is the bill his government put before the Knesset and he expects it to be approved down to its last article. Instead of which, we’re getting quite a few mumblings regarding the question of whether Torah scholars in the State of Israel should or shouldn’t go to prison. This is what I expect of the prime minister.”

There’s only a slim chance that Netanyahu will touch this hot potato with something less than a 10-foot pole, having for years, despite harsh criticism from the Supreme Court, managed to avoid the issue that has clearly damaged his alliance with the ultra-Orthodox. Shelah knows this. For years, he slung his arrows at Netanyahu as a journalist and commentator. In addition, in recent months he learned about the prime minister’s political preferences, up close and personal, when Netanyahu refused to hand the Yesh Atid Party the chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman left the post. Shelah was supposed to replace Liberman, but found out that Netanyahu planned to hand the prestigious committee to his Likud associate, Knesset member Tzahi Hanegbi. This dispute has yet to be resolved, and in an unprecedented void, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has been without a permanent chairman for months.