Lapid: Gantz and Eisenkot should ditch government if cabinet approves Haredi draft law
Opposition leader calls current situation a ‘security disaster,’ as Netanyahu reportedly tells ministers coalition will collapse if the law is not passed and he won’t give up on it
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said Monday that war cabinet minister Benny Gantz should pull his National Unity party out of the government if a contentious Haredi draft law is advanced by the cabinet this week, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was said to tell ministers in his Likud party that without the law, his government would collapse.
The Yesh Atid chair’s comments came a day after Gantz threatened to bolt the coalition if the controversial legislation becomes law, calling it a “red line” and “a threat to national cohesion.”
“If the conscription law passes [in the cabinet] on Tuesday, Gantz and [minister Gadi] Eisenkot should leave the government,” Lapid told the Kan public broadcaster.
“[The government is] playing with Israel’s security. It’s not just an ideological discussion anymore,” he said. “It’s a security disaster. There are not enough soldiers, the army is stretched to the limit. There are more soldiers in the West Bank than in Gaza at the moment, the actual war is not going on right now.”
According to Kan, Netanyahu has sent a message to ministers in his Likud party that he will not give up on the contentious legislation, and that without the law, the government will fall.
Coalition ministers reportedly spoke to people close to Netanyahu to explore the possibility of not supporting the bill when they received the prime minister’s message.
In addition to political obstacles, the legislation faces legal ones too. According to reports Monday, the coalition is holding discussions on the proposed draft law after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara warned that she would be unable to defend the proposal if it was challenged in court, due to unspecified “significant and essential difficulties.”
Ynet reported that setting annual quotas for conscripting graduates of Haredi educational institutions is among the potential areas for adjustment in the proposed legislation.
Ultra-Orthodox men of military age have been able to avoid the draft for decades by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption. Netanyahu’s proposed outline, to be discussed Tuesday by lawmakers, would see the age of exemption raised to 35.
On Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — who has stated he cannot support any legislation passed without broad agreement from all coalition parties, especially Gantz’s — also rejected Netanyahu’s plan, saying that a flexible agreement on the issue was “essential for the existence and success of the IDF,” and appealed for a compromise to be found.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the government has called up a total of 287,000 reservists, announced earlier-than-planned draft dates for some 1,300 members of pre-army programs, and pushed to significantly increase both conscripts’ and reservists’ periods of service.
That latter plan, presented by the defense establishment last month, generated fierce backlash among lawmakers from across the political spectrum and encouraged multiple legislative pushes to end the de facto exemptions for the Haredim.
According to the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, some 66,000 young men from the Haredi community received an exemption from military service over the past year, said to be an all-time record.
A law that authorizes these exemptions expired in June 2023, and a temporary regulation that extended it is set to expire next week, after which the military will not be legally authorized to exempt Haredi young men from the draft and will need to start enlisting them.
As the deadline nears, the government has been rushing to legislate a new version of the law, with the ultra-Orthodox parties demanding continued exemption while other coalition factions, including members of Likud and the far-right Religious Zionist party, have been demanding that the Haredi community performs military service.
Last month, Gantz and Eisenkot — both former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff — presented an outline for the enlistment of Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
