Knesset approves 2026 budget, Israel’s largest ever, sending billions to Haredi institutions |
The Knesset voted to pass the largest state budget in Israel’s history early Monday morning, growing the defense budget to unprecedented levels amid the war with Iran and sending billions of shekels to Haredi educational institutions and other priorities of the governing coalition.
The vote averted early elections, which would have been triggered had the budget failed to pass before its legally mandated deadline on Tuesday.
Lawmakers voted 62-55 in favor of the NIS 850.6 billion ($271 billion) spending bill, which Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called “a budget that takes care of everyone and fights the cost of living” and Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, called “the greatest theft in the history of the state.”
“We are passing this budget under a right-wing government that will serve out its full term and complete its mission in security, the economy, and in reforming the judicial system,” said a jubilant Smotrich, speaking before the Knesset plenum ahead of the vote.
“Anyone who votes against the budget is voting against Israel’s security, against tax relief for working people in Israel, and against taxation of the banks,” he said.
The vote followed over thirteen hours of filibustering from the opposition, and multiple interruptions from sirens warning of ballistic missiles from Iran, causing proceedings to pause repeatedly. Because of the sirens, MKs cast their votes from an alternate, fortified room.
One of those votes, taking place shortly after midnight, approved amendments that allocated approximately NIS 800 million ($255 million) to programs and institutions favored by Haredi parties, including yeshivas.
The vote came after the ultra-Orthodox parties agreed to support the budget even though the coalition hasn’t passed a bill they demanded enshrining blanket exemptions from military conscription for yeshiva students.
The allocations to Haredi budget priorities appear to deliver funding that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara blocked due to the lack of ultra-Orthodox conscription, according to Hebrew media reports. Because budget amendments are usually proposed by the parliamentary opposition as a way to stymie the budget, opposition MKs mistakenly voted for the added Haredi funding before realizing their error.
Opponents of the coalition decried the last-minute amendments, which they described as unprcedented.
“There’s never been anything like this in the history of the Knesset,” Lapid posted on X early Monday morning. “This is a collection of lowly thieves who are disconnected from the people, who are looting the citizens of Israel while they’re in bomb shelters” due to the war........