Kadima Pulls Out of Israeli Government

Israel plunged toward a political crisis today after the largest party in the government quit the governing coalition. Kadima Party, the more moderate member of the coalition, voted to pull out of the government in a feud over granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students. Kadima is led by Shaul Mofaz, a former IDF chief of general staff (he was born in Tehran in 1948), and will now join the opposition. The move might force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call for early elections. In the meantime, Israel will be led by a coalition with a narrow parliamentary majority dominated by religious and nationalist hard-liners.