Any conscription law on Haredim ‘must be temporary,’ says Religious Zionism MK
Michal Woldiger tells The Times of Israel legislation can be extended if it succeeds in boosting enlistment, but if it fails, ‘then something else needs to be done’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The controversial military conscription bill currently being debated in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee should not be passed as a permanent law, but rather as a temporary measure, said committee member MK Michal Woldiger.
Speaking with The Times of Israel in her Knesset office last week, the Religious Zionism MK and former deputy finance minister argued that any enlistment legislation approved by the Knesset “must be a temporary” measure rather than a permanent one, “so that we can examine whether the outline is really successful.”
“If it is successful, then if it needs to be continued, it will be continued. If it is successful to the point that it is not needed… [then we already have] a law that requires everyone to go and enlist,” she said.
“And if it doesn’t succeed, then something else needs to be done. Therefore, in my opinion, it must be a temporary law.”
Woldiger said that, as a member of the national-religious community, she sees Torah study as a supreme value, but “there are moments when we also need to apply [the Torah] beyond our individual selves, as a group, as a people, as a country.”
“We need the people’s army. We need a large and strong army. And so unequivocally what was is not what will be. We cannot let it continue like this,” she asserted.
However, when it came to the ongoing debate between committee chairman Yuli Edelstein and Defense Minister Israel Katz as to how to effect such sweeping changes in practice, Woldiger was noncommittal.
Katz’s proposed enlistment outline calls for gradually increasing the number of Haredim drafted into the military until it hits 50 percent of the annual eligible ultra-Orthodox draft cohort in 2032.
Edelstein has rejected this approach, arguing instead for the “immediate” enlistment of 4,800 ultra-Orthodox recruits, followed by the mobilization of all eligible Israelis — in accordance with the needs and capacity of the army — starting in 2026.
The Israel Defense Forces has said it will have the capacity to absorb Haredim “without any restrictions” starting next year. Katz believes that, while the army may be able to accommodate that number, it will be impossible to recruit that many without the agreement of the ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leadership.
Asked which side she takes in the argument, Woldiger would only say that she believes the two ultimately “will come to some kind of understanding” to keep the issue from “blowing up in our faces.”
‘Voluntary migration’
Turning to the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has spurred the military’s need for more manpower, Woldiger said Israel should only speak with the terror group “in a language that they understand.”
“There have been millions of refugees around the world since 1948, and they moved them all, solved this problem,” she continued, endorsing Israeli leaders’ embrace of the idea of encouraging “voluntary migration” from Gaza following US President Donald Trump’s proposal for the enclave.
“We need to start talking to [Hamas] in the language of occupying land and fully occupying the land and annexing it, because only in this way will they understand who they are dealing with and will disappear from the civilian, political and security map,” she said.
Speaking at a conference of West Bank settlers last November, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of Woldiger’s Religious Zionism party, said that Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years.
Critics of the “voluntary emigration” policy have argued that it is a euphemism for forced displacement — a war crime.
Asked if such rhetoric really constituted voluntary action rather than forced transfer, Woldiger replied that her far-right party was “talking about voluntary migration.”
“Since Hamas came to power. 300,000 Gazans have already moved. It’s not something new. It happens in all countries,” she said. “Look at what happened in Syria. The Syrians migrated when there was a war in Syria.”
“‘Encourage’ means: ‘Here, please take money and move abroad, buy yourselves a house there,'” she continued. “Tell them: ‘Friends, you have nothing to do here. Everything here is destroyed, everything here is collapsed, there is no life here.'”
Addressing the issue during a conference in Eilat on Tuesday, however, Woldiger took a much harsher stance, calling to “cleanse” all Palestinians from Gaza.
“We will eliminate Hamas, cleanse Gaza of every potential murderer, and everyone there is a potential murderer,” she said, according to the Arutz Sheva news site.
