In recent months, the possibility of bringing the ultra-Orthodox parties into the Bennett-Lapid governing coalition has met with an unequivocal answer from Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu), who has said, "It's them or me."
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The Haredi parties, meanwhile, are saying they have no interest in joining the government.
However, high-ranking government officials say that the new political situation created following the passage of the state budget could make cooperation a possibility.
Recently, relations between the coalition and the Haredi parties have seen a few interesting milestones. For example, although Lieberman and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have both spoken about the need to make major cuts to the budgets allocated to the Haredi, the money for haredi yeshivas in the state budget remains high, at 1.71 billion shekels ($550 million), only 5% less than the sum for the same purpose in the previous budget.
The same senior officials discussed a few options that have been floated, some of which are more realistic than others. While they think that the chances of both Shas and United Torah Judaism joining the coalition are slim, perhaps one of the two parties might join.
Another possibility would be to identify individual members of United Torah Judaism who are interested in working with the government.
The officials said that the best and most realistic scenario would be for the government to start working with the Haredi parties without them joining the coalition.
"The Haredi public has needs. Yeshivas, institutions, daycare centers, and every aspect of life. It can't neglect them for three and a half years because they are tied to Benjamin Netanyahu. It would be better for the Haredim themselves to find ways of cooperating and taking care of their public," one government official said.
The government has stressed that currently, there are no ongoing talks with the Haredi parties or with Lieberman, but that it expects the matter to come up again in the next few months.
Meanwhile, UTJ MK Yisrael Eichler said in a recent interview to the Haredi news outlet Kikar Hashabbat: "We put our future in Netanyahu's delusions four times. He was deluding us all the time. After he lost the first election [in 2019], we should have told him, 'You need to go, admit the fact that you've lost.'"
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