For those interested in the Israeli political mess I mentioned above that’s seemingly eclipsing the Netanyahu investigations: it’s all about two pieces of legislation that now have Netanyahu and the administration in a major bind.
The former involves the IDF service draft now affecting Yeshiva students who were previously exempt from service (due to an old law passed in the 1960s).
The latter is the legislation for the state’s annual budget, which is now being held hostage by minority religious parties in the Israeli coalition government due to the potential passing of the former.
It’s essentially extortion - the minority religious parties have just enough representatives to be able to threaten to kill the budget law and leave the government if the IDF draft bill passes as it is (which would bring about the administration’s and new elections as a result).
On one hand, the administration for the most part doesn’t want early elections, and has capitulated in the past to different demands to avoid that. On the other hand, the vast majority of the population supports the draft law, in part because IDF service is meant to be equal to all yet it still exempts hundreds of thousands (and was originally intended for just a few thousand religious scholars back in the 60s); this is an issue that also stems from a supreme court ruling stating that the previous arrangement was no longer acceptable in modern times. Not to mention that it would send the message that no one in the government has a shred of a spine.

There’s about a dozen more reasons both for why the government should surrender due to political concerns as well as for why doing so would be nothing short of catastrophic. In short - seriously damned if they do, only slightly less damned if they don’t.

By all accounts, based on reports from the past couple of hours, it looks as though by this time next week, the administration will either be greatly crippled due to capitulation or finished and the country en route to elections.
All while Bibi - who would have to face potential contenders from within his party before the elections - faces multiple police investigations.

Have the popcorn ready and within reach….