Netanyahu's Legislative Blitz: A Strategic Play for Coalition Loyalty, Not Voter Appeal
On September 28, just weeks before the next elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will mark 19 years in office across three separate terms. It is a remarkable political achievement, astonishing even considering the October 7 massacre, and one that places him among the longest-serving democratic leaders in modern times.
He did not get there by misreading the Israeli public. Quite the opposite. One of Netanyahu's defining strengths has been his instinct for sensing where the Israeli mainstream is heading and repositioning himself accordingly. After the Second Intifada, he understood before many others that the public had soured on the Oslo process, stopped believing territorial concessions would bring peace, and prioritized security over diplomacy. He built his politics around that shift.
Can Netanyahu Still Read the Public Mood?
That episode illustrates a hallmark of Netanyahu's politics: reading the public mood. For years, that instinct served him extraordinarily well. Which is precisely what makes the coalition's current legislative blitz so striking.
The legislation appears less a response to the Israel that emerged after October 7 than an effort to complete the coalition's pre-war agenda. From the proposed Basic Law: Torah Study to legislation delaying the arrest of haredi draft dodgers, splitting the attorney general's office, and creating a political rather than a state commission of inquiry into October 7, the coalition's priorities appear to run against the prevailing public mood.
What is Netanyahu Seeing That Everyone Else Isn't?
The massacre reordered the country's priorities. Shared sacrifice, accountability, national unity, and rebuilding trust in public institutions moved to the forefront. Yet the coalition's legislative agenda points in almost the opposite direction: haredi exemptions, weakening enforcement of conscription, reshaping public institutions, and changing the mechanism for investigating October 7.
A Channel 12 poll released Monday found that 21% of coalition voters said they are considering voting for a party outside the coalition because of the government's last-minute legislative blitz. Politicians usually spend the weeks before an election trying to broaden their appeal. Netanyahu appears to be narrowing his.
Who is This Legislative Blitz Aimed At?
The answer may be that these bills are aimed less at voters than at future coalition partners. The Likud is unlikely to attract opposition voters by shielding draft dodgers or equalizing benefits for yeshiva students who do not serve with those who spend months each year in reserve duty. But by delivering on long-standing haredi demands, Netanyahu strengthens his standing with Shas and United Torah Judaism while giving those parties something tangible to take back to their own constituents.
New elections are a given. They must be held by October 27. As a result, this legislative blitz is no longer about preserving the current coalition. It is about shaping the next one. Netanyahu appears to be making an investment in the post-election coalition, signaling to the haredi parties that when it mattered, he delivered on their core demands, even at a steep political cost.
The calculation seems to be that a somewhat smaller Likud that retains the confidence of the haredim is preferable to a larger Likud whose most natural coalition partners no longer trust him. That also helps explain Netanyahu's recent calls for a broad national government. In his mind, such a government is not to be built without the haredim, but alongside them.
Will Netanyahu's Loyalty to the Haredim Be Reciprocated?
While Netanyahu is bending over backward to demonstrate his loyalty to the haredi parties, it is far from certain that the loyalty will be reciprocated. In recent months, as the prime minister repeatedly failed to deliver a haredi conscription bill, leading rabbis and haredi politicians publicly attacked him. In mid-May, the head of Lithuanian Jewry, Rabbi Dov Lando, declared that the historic haredi bloc with the Likud was over.
Nor should the political pragmatism of the haredim be underestimated. Over the years, they have joined Labor governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak when doing so served their interests. The difference this time is that the public mood surrounding haredi military service has changed so dramatically that it may prove far more difficult for opposition leaders and potential coalition partners to justify sitting with the haredi parties.
Ultimately, the coalition's legislative blitz is less about voter arithmetic than coalition arithmetic. Netanyahu is betting that securing the loyalty of his future coalition partners matters more than maximizing today's vote. If he is right, this will be remembered as yet another example of the political instincts that have enabled him to serve as prime minister for nearly two decades. If he is wrong, it may be remembered as one of the rare occasions when Israel's most accomplished political tactician misread the public he has understood so well for so long.