From the Liveblog of
Monday, November 11, 2024
Cabinet secretary to coalition leaders: With Gallant gone, we’ll deliver ‘good law’ on Haredi army service
United Torah Judaism leader Yitzhak Goldknopf again rules out widespread IDF service for ultra-Orthodox males, and tells coalition colleagues that, while he agrees in principle that “those who don’t study [Torah full-time] should serve,” military service “should not be imposed,” but implemented “by agreement.”
According to quotes from a meeting of Goldknopf and other coalition party leaders leaked to Hebrew media, cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs told them that Netanyahu’s dismissal last week of former defense minister Yoav Gallant, who opposed planned legislation to enshrine decades of non-service by most of the ultra-Orthodox community, and his replacement by Israel Katz, marks “a new opportunity” to advance “a good law.”
The High Court ruled in June that the ultra-Orthodox must be drafted.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to discuss the ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill with Defense Minister Katz and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein this evening.
Speaking on behalf of Shas leader Aryeh Deri at the meeting of coalition leaders, Shas’s Religious Affairs Minister Michael Malchieli blames Gallant for the currently deadlocked legislation, saying Gallant “torpedoed every effort to enable” a viable solution.
Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich notes that his Modern Orthodox community is “sacrificing immensely, with many fallen soldiers, and lots of criticism” over the non-service of Haredim. “There must be a positive declaration from you, the Haredi leadership, about the draft,” he says.
Fellow far-right leader Itamar Ben Gvir of Otzma Yehudit suggests that ultra-Orthodox men “come to the Border Police,” which he oversees as minister of national security. “I know how to draft Haredim,” says Ben Gvir, whom the IDF did not draft when he was a young man because of his criminal record. “We are ready and willing.”
Ben Gvir says he suggested this to Gallant several times, “but he didn’t respond.”
