The Knesset plenum advanced in its preliminary reading on Wednesday a bill that aims to change the eligibility criteria for daycare subsidies to be based solely on a mother’s income, in a move which critics argue will encourage state subsidies for parents of draft evaders, amid the IDF’s severe manpower shortage.
The bill passed by a margin of 44-37 after a heated plenum session. The legislation titled, Law on Admission of a Child to a Daycare Center and State Participation in Tuition Costs, was sponsored by MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) and a group of additional haredi (ultra-Orthodox) lawmakers.
The bill will now be brought to the Knesset House Committee for debate and still must pass three more readings in the plenum to become law.
Ahead of the vote, Gafni had reportedly threatened to vote with the opposition on its bills to establish a state commission of inquiry into government failures on October 7 to ensure that the coalition would vote in favor of the daycare subsidies legislation. The coalition has repeatedly blocked such a probe into government failures during the attacks.
The plenum’s agenda was then rearranged so that the daycare subsidies bill would be voted on ahead of the state commission of inquiry bills. Subsequently, the opposition removed all the October 7 probe bills from the agenda after the daycare subsidies bill passed.
Bill may provide subsidies to children of draft dodgers
The bill proposes that only the mother’s employment or educational status be considered when determining subsidy eligibility for a daycare center, without taking the father’s employment status into account. This would allow children of haredi men who do not serve in the IDF and are unemployed to receive daycare subsidies.
The vote on the bill comes amid the crisis in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, which led the haredi parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – to push for the Knesset’s dissolution, which passed in its preliminary reading last week.
Despite tensions between the haredi parties and the coalition, lawmakers from Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party voted in favor of the bill.
Haredi lawmakers celebrated in the plenum once it passed, which led to outrage from the opposition in the plenum. Shas party leader Arye Deri arrived to vote in favor of the legislation.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, also voted in favor of the bill.
MK Dan Illouz (Likud) voted against it. Illouz is a vocal critic of the controversial haredi draft that the coalition has advanced.
Following the daycare subsidies bill’s passage, MK Efrat Rayten (the Democrats) sharply criticized the legislation.
“At a time when the north is under fire and soldiers are being killed almost daily by drone attacks, the coalition is busy with corrupt legislation designed to bypass the High Court ruling in order to subsidize daycare centers for families of draft evaders in the haredi sector. This is what they choose to do during wartime,” she said.
“In defiance of court rulings. Without any shame. On the contrary, with cheers. This toxic coalition has once again proven that all it cares about is political survival. This is the swan song of the worst government in the country’s history,” she added.
