Haredi MKs insist ‘we’ll be fine’ despite High Court military draft ruling

Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers are meeting Wednesday afternoon in the Knesset to discuss their response to yesterday’s High Court of Justice ruling that struck down a 2015 law postponing the mass-drafting of Haredi youth into the IDF.

“Power must be returned to the Knesset,” Shas head Interior Minister Aryeh Deri says, criticizing what he sees as the High Court’s judicial activism on the issue.

United Torah Judaism’s Health Minister Yaakov Litzman says both Haredi parties would act to ensure the previous version of the law, passed in 2014 and which requires every-growing military conscription rates from the Haredi community, would be canceled.

“Every coalition partner is committed [in the signed coalition agreements] to an arrangement” that would keep yeshiva students from being forced into military service, Deri says at the meeting. “We’ll be fine.”

“We are convinced that every coalition partner will vote for any amendment that the legal advisers propose” to prevent such mass-conscription, he says.