From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 1, 2025
Bennett: Government ‘betraying the serving public’ on Haredi conscription
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"
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett accuses the government of “betraying the serving public” after the cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to authorize Defense Minister Israel Katz to mobilize up to 280,000 reservists, only hours ahead of a scheduled Knesset debate on its proposed bill to regulate ultra-Orthodox conscription.
“Last night, members of the government approved in a WhatsApp [vote] hundreds of thousands of call-up orders for reservists who show up again and again to defend the country and are collapsing under the burden — and not a single minister objected. Today, the government is beginning to advance the most anti-Zionist law in the history of the state. This law will not pass. The people of Israel will fight for the reservists who have fought for them for two years,” Bennett declares in a statement.
The legislation, as currently laid out, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of ultra-Orthodox educational institutions, but with actual enforcement in question. It is set to be debated in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in preparation for the second and third readings necessary for it to pass into law.
“Time and again, the government is betraying the serving public. In the next government, there will be a new equation: whoever serves the state, the state will serve them,” Bennett says.
“There shall not be two countries here! We will embrace our Haredi brothers all the way to the IDF induction center, replace the [Haredi] party education system with an Israeli-Haredi education system, and work to allow Haredim dignified employment and livelihood. Only in this way will we create a full partnership for the sake of the State of Israel,” the former premier declares.
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