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Today’s Episode: 

On Monday, the three Haredi parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition were presented with a draft of a new Haredi conscription bill, which they say did not satisfy their demands for military exemption for Haredi youth.

This led two of the parties, Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael, to leave Netanyahu’s government on Monday, bringing the coalition down from 68 to 61 seats, which is the smallest possible majority in the 120 seat Knesset. On Wednesday, Shas, another Haredi party, announced its resignation from the government, but not from the coalition, leaving the coalition’s majority at an extremely thin margin. 

In other news, over the past couple days, the new Syrian government led by Ahmed el-Sharaa, has been working alongside local Bedouin tribes to violently target Syria’s southern Druze community. This has prompted around 1,000 Israeli Druze to breach the Israel-Syria border in an effort to join their brothers and sisters’ struggle. In response to the Syrian government’s actions, Israel launched a series of airstrikes targeting military infrastructure in Damascus.  

To unpack the developments taking place in Netanyahu’s government, as well as the chaos unfolding in Syria, we were joined by Call me Back contributors Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal.

(00:00) Introduction

(03:51) Israel’s system and current composition

(09:24) What are the parties negotiating?

(16:45) Haredi conscription in the IDF 

(22:37) Why did the ultra-Orthodox parties resign?

(28:29) What are Netanyahu’s options?

(36:31) What does this mean for a hostage deal?

(39:09) Crisis in Syria 

(48:33) Outro

CREDITS:

ILAN BENATAR - Producer & Editor

MARTIN HUERGO - Sound Editor

MARIANGELES BURGOS - Additional Editing

MAYA RACKOFF - Operations Director

GABE SILVERSTEIN - Research

YUVAL SEMO - Music Composer