Deri: IDF ‘doesn’t want’ Haredi soldiers, they’re ‘a big headache’

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri dismisses the suggestion that he should call on army-age Haredi men who don’t study Torah to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.

“The army, with all due respect, that knows how to bomb Iran – that army knows how to cope. Let them cope,” he tells the ultra-Orthodox Kol Berama radio station.

The party leader also asserts that “the army doesn’t want Haredi soldiers. It’s a big headache for them.”

He says he does not feel obliged to urge Haredim to enlist “until there are real tracks” that will allow them to maintain their strictly observant lifestyle.

Asked about the Hasmonean Brigade, recently created for that purpose, he says, “I haven’t looked into it,” asserting that it’s a matter for rabbis, not lawmakers, to examine.

Responding to the comments, Yashar party chief Gadi Eisenkot says: “Aryeh, it’s over. This time, you’ll cope.”

And B’Yachad leader Naftali Bennett comments that the IDF “is crying out for soldiers and Deri is lying and making excuses.”

Avigdor Liberman, who leads the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu party, suggests that the late chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who founded Shas, is “rolling in his grave at [Deri’s] conduct.”