Deri accuses Zamir of election interference for opposing law banning arrests of draft dodgers

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri attacks IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir over his strong opposition to the coalition’s recently passed law freezing the arrest of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers, accusing him of trying “to help the left-wing bloc during an election campaign.”

Before the law’s passage earlier this week, Zamir warned in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Likud MK Boaz Bismuth that the legislation was “clearly and unequivocally inconsistent with the IDF’s needs,” and amounted to providing “mass exemptions from prosecution” for draft dodgers.

Some 72,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, despite mounting calls for their conscription as Israel has fought wars on multiple fronts since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack, while facing a growing manpower shortage.

Speaking to Kikar HaShabbat, Deri alleges that Zamir has “lost it” and is “preoccupied with attacks against him and with protecting his own reputation.”

Deri argues that the military chief knows arrests of Haredi draft dodgers “won’t bring a single new recruit.”

“What the chief of staff did was try to help the left-wing bloc during an election campaign,” he says. “He is the army’s chief of staff, he must not engage in politics. What he did set a very dangerous precedent… He caused great damage to the army. He did not help the army.”

Deri’s assertion directly contradicts testimony the IDF gave to the Knesset last month, attributing part of the increase in Haredi enlistment — from roughly 1,800 recruits in 2024 to an estimated 3,500 over the past year — to stepped-up enforcement measures.

According to the military, roughly 60 percent of Haredi draft dodgers who are arrested ultimately enlist, while the prospect of enforcement prompts many others to report voluntarily before facing sanctions.

Although only a few have actually been arrested, those cases have caused the ultra-Orthodox parties and the coalition a severe political headache, prompting the new legislation to freeze such arrests.

Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, assails Deri for his comments, calling them “a display of arrogance and detachment from reality.”

He goes on: “There is nothing Jewish about sending only part of the people of Israel to fight a necessary war. There is no leadership in turning the IDF chief of staff into a tool in your dirty political game.”

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Together party, says: “One moment Deri boasts about his draft-dodging grandchildren, and the next he attacks the IDF chief of staff, as though he bears no responsibility for the chaos and terrible rift in Israeli society.

“Only in a government like that of October 7 can someone like Deri — whose life’s work has been promoting mass draft evasion — dare to blame the chief of staff for his own failure.”