A press conference meant to highlight a significant security and diplomatic achievement regarding Lebanon quickly transformed into the opening act of Israel’s next election season.
Standing before cameras, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel had secured an unprecedented arrangement with Lebanon, brokered by Washington, that would allow Israel to maintain a security zone for as long as Hezbollah remained armed and posed a threat. But when reporters shifted their questions from Lebanon to the ongoing ultra-Orthodox military draft crisis, Netanyahu pivoted from military strategy to political vision — announcing that after the elections, he plans to form a “broad national government.”
The timing was deliberate. Netanyahu’s government had just survived yet another coalition crisis after reaching an agreement with ultra-Orthodox parties regarding draft enforcement and the detention of yeshiva students who had ignored military call-up orders. While the deal may have extended the coalition’s lifespan, it has also placed military service — and the parties that resist it — at the center of any future government Netanyahu says he wants to build.
“I am not boycotting anyone,” Netanyahu said, describing his proposed post-election coalition as open to any party willing to accept a set of core principles. He outlined those principles as: Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, respect for individual rights, a free economy, technological and defense independence, and broad agreement on draft and judicial matters. He later added one more condition: “There is no room for two states. From the sea to the Jordan, there is no room for two states,” explicitly rejecting Palestinian statehood as a foundational principle of any government he would lead.
That position sharpened the core political question of the campaign: How can a prime minister who promises a broad, Zionist-led government continue to depend on ultra-Orthodox parties that are historically non-Zionist and that prioritize military service exemptions for Torah students?
Netanyahu’s allies frame this as a matter of necessity rather than contradiction. Likud lawmaker Moshe Saada told The Media Line that a broad government is the appropriate response to a deeply divided society. “You cannot heal the rifts with a narrow government,” Saada said. “It will deepen the divide. We have to do everything to create connections among us.”
Saada also defended the government’s decision to halt arrests of yeshiva students, arguing that criminal enforcement fosters resentment rather than enlistment. “Every arrest of one haredi prevents the enlistment of another haredi,” he said. “It creates hatred and gives nothing.” He added that it is not practically feasible for the state to arrest tens of thousands of people, calling a focus on arrests “cheap populism.”
His preferred approach is a “no service, no benefits” model — relying on economic incentives and sanctions rather than arrests. “Only the economy moves people to action. Force and coercion, in the end, produce nothing,” he said. Saada compared this strategy to past reductions in allowances that helped increase ultra-Orthodox women’s participation in the workforce without requiring police enforcement.
That argument aligns with the government’s formal justification for the proposed arrest freeze. Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs wrote to Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth that arrests were undermining efforts to bring haredi men into the military, deepening a rift with the ultra-Orthodox community, and risking what he warned could escalate into severe internal conflict — potentially approaching “civil war.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz also supported moving the issue to the committee and backed a temporary framework that would suspend arrests of yeshiva students under specific conditions.
The opposition sees it very differently. Yesh Atid’s Moshe Tur-Paz, a reservist who served in the conflict following October 7, told The Media Line that Netanyahu is not genuinely addressing the draft issue but rather trying to lock in ultra-Orthodox political support ahead of elections. “I think what Netanyahu is trying to achieve is to connect haredim stronger toward him, so he makes sure that they don’t leave him after the elections,” Tur-Paz said. “We’re seeing a terrified Netanyahu doing everything to keep the haredi parties on his side.”
Tur-Paz called the partnership “disgraceful,” particularly while Israeli soldiers continue to be killed in Lebanon and the country faces pressure on multiple fronts. “The price of … defending Israel’s borders these days is going up by the day,” he said. “Threats haven’t gone down, not in Lebanon, not in Syria, not in Gaza. And Iran is still a big enemy of Israel.” He argued the government should be expanding the pool of those who serve, not reducing pressure on those who refuse.
He acknowledged that more ultra-Orthodox men are serving in the military today than in the past, but said that progress was not driven by the haredi parties or Netanyahu’s government. “The army has done a bigger effort to bring in haredim, but nothing has been done or led by the political part of the coalition,” he said.
The issue carries real political risk for Netanyahu because it divides his own voter base. A recent Channel 12 poll found that 62% of respondents opposed the Netanyahu-ultra-Orthodox deal, while only 23% supported it. That same poll showed Likud rising to 23 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party holding steady at 21, and Naftali Bennett’s alliance slipping to 18. The coalition bloc reached 52 seats, while the opposition — including Arab parties — reached 68.
The poll numbers reveal the complexity of Netanyahu’s situation. Likud still claimed first place with 23 seats, and Netanyahu remained competitive in head-to-head matchups. But the warning sign lay elsewhere: Eisenkot led Netanyahu in prime ministerial suitability ratings, 38% to 36%, and the broader bloc numbers left the current coalition well short of a majority. That explains why Netanyahu is already talking about bringing in partners from outside his current camp — and why his phrase “broad national government” sounds less like a slogan and more like a preview of post-election deal-making.
The shift implies an unspoken acknowledgment. For years, Netanyahu’s political formula depended on a hard-right coalition with ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners. His repeated references to a future broad government suggest he is laying the groundwork for a different arrangement — not necessarily abandoning current partners, but signaling that the existing formula may not be enough to secure the stable majority he needs.
Tur-Paz did not rule out Likud as a future partner in a broad Zionist coalition — but only without Netanyahu. Saada, by contrast, did not seriously entertain the reverse scenario, in which Likud would join a government led by Eisenkot, Bennett, or another center-right figure. In his view, the most likely outcome remains a Netanyahu-led government that brings in at least one centrist party after the election.
The contrast is telling. The opposition is working to separate Likud from Netanyahu. Likud, at least as Saada describes it, is working to pull centrist voters and parties away from the opposition while keeping Netanyahu at the head of the table. In both cases, the same underlying question is being tested: whether Israel’s next government can be broader than the current one without first removing the man who built it.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned that talk of a broad unity government was “very troubling” and insisted Netanyahu must form a fully right-wing government. During a cabinet meeting, after Netanyahu again stated his intention to build a broad national government grounded in Jewish statehood, defense independence, and rejection of a Palestinian state, Ben-Gvir pressed him not to exclude any part of the right-wing bloc. Netanyahu replied that there would be no boycotts.
Saada echoed that position. “Every Zionist party that fights alongside me, … I have no problem with,” he said. He rejected the notion of sidelining parties on the right out of political discomfort, arguing that anyone fit to serve alongside others in combat should not be treated as illegitimate in government. “I do not boycott any Zionist party,” he said. “Period.”
That stance becomes more complicated when the current coalition is examined closely. Saada said he would not work with parties that reject Zionism or the state itself, but he treated the ultra-Orthodox parties as a different case. When asked how non-Zionist haredi factions fit alongside a party like Likud, he argued that the gap between rabbinic leadership and the broader haredi public is larger than it may appear from the outside.
The haredi public, Saada argued, is gradually drawing closer to the rest of Israeli society, even if the process is slow and uneven. The rabbis, he said, may be less connected to the broader Israeli experience, but the public is undergoing its own evolution. “The haredi mainstream is also part of the melting pot,” he said. “It is Jewish and national. It is more liberal than its rabbis.”
For Tur-Paz, that is precisely the contradiction. Netanyahu, he said, is deepening his ties with United Torah Judaism and Shas while presenting himself as the future leader of a Zionist coalition. “People find it hard to believe when they see an Israeli strong leader doing something and yet saying exactly the opposite,” Tur-Paz said. “He is adding more and more laws that are meant to strengthen the ties with them, stop the few haredim that are going to the army, do whatever he can to help them get money from the government, and yet he says, ‘I want a broad Zionist government.’”
Tur-Paz said Yesh Atid does not rule out a future coalition with Likud in principle — but not under Netanyahu. “I do hope there is a future for Likud as a Zionist right-wing party without Netanyahu,” he said. “But that has to be proven.” For now, he argued, Likud remains defined by the prime minister’s personal leadership and by lawmakers unwilling to break from him. “You really ask yourself, is there a place for different leadership in the Likud? At the moment the answer is no,” he said.
Netanyahu’s broad-government message has also been publicly rejected by opposition leaders outside Yesh Atid. Eisenkot dismissed the idea of joining any government under him, arguing that a leader who avoided accountability after October 7 cannot lecture others about national unity. Yair Golan called on the liberal and democratic bloc to declare outright that it would not sit with Netanyahu. Benny Gantz, who twice entered unity arrangements with Netanyahu, has also expressed doubt that the offer is sincere.
Netanyahu’s supporters counter that Israel’s security situation demands a larger governing structure, not a smaller one. Saada said the Lebanon agreement itself demonstrates that Israel has entered a period in which military gains must be converted into diplomatic and internal political progress. He described Israel’s position regarding Lebanon as “dramatic,” saying it gives Israel international legitimacy to remain there until Hezbollah is disarmed. He framed a broad government as part of the same strategic moment. “To heal the rifts, you need a real broad government,” he said.
The language of “civil war” now hovers over this entire debate. Netanyahu invoked the warning of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin against internal conflict, urging unity while external enemies remain active. Fuchs used similarly stark language in his letter on draft enforcement. Tur-Paz said such language is dangerous and should not become normalized. “We could argue, we can debate, we can be very anxious about things, but we can’t afford fighting each other because that means the end of Israel,” he said.
That is where the draft crisis and the election campaign now converge. Netanyahu’s agreement with the ultra-Orthodox parties may help him hold his current coalition together long enough to reach the next political stage. But it has also handed his rivals a powerful argument: that the same leader who speaks of national unity and a Zionist majority remains bound to partners whose political demands run directly counter to the principle of equal military service.
For Netanyahu, the answer is that a future broad government could generate the consensus the current system cannot deliver. For the opposition, the haredi deal is proof that no such consensus can be built under his leadership. Between those two positions lies the opening battle of Israel’s election campaign — not merely about who wins the most seats, but about what kind of government can claim to represent a nation exhausted by war, divided over military service, and uncertain whether “unity” is a genuine governing plan or simply another campaign promise.
