From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 17, 2025
Lapid calls on AG to probe Haredi faction for encouraging followers to evade 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"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ought to investigate the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael faction, calling its conduct “both illegal and disgraceful.”
Last week, The Times of Israel reported that a hotline established by Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush had encouraged draft evasion. A separate investigation by the Ynet news site found that the party was also running a hotline instructing constituents on how to circumvent a High Court ruling restricting daycare subsidies for children of yeshiva students who fail to enlist.
Asked about the reports, Lapid replies that such conduct represents “a rare combination of something that is both illegal and disgraceful.”
“Why is it that those subsidies are being cut? It is because they are not drafting to the army, because they are not serving their country during wartime. So on top of this, a part of the government is telling its own people how to make sure they gain illegal money from the fact that they have decided not to be part of the general effort to fight a war that is an existential war.”
The attorney general should investigate the matter, he adds.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid condemns Agudat Yisrael's draft evasion hotline and tells The Times of Israel that the AG needs to investigate pic.twitter.com/7cCc1RIoPL
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) February 17, 2025
