From the Liveblog of
Monday, March 25, 2024
Lapid: Gantz and Eisenkot should leave government if Haredi draft law is approved by cabinet
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says war cabinet minister Benny Gantz should pull his National Unity party out of the government if contentious Haredi draft legislation is approved by the cabinet this week, en route to becoming law.
“If the conscription law passes on Tuesday, Gantz and [minister Gadi] Eisenkot should leave the government,” he tells the Kan public broadcaster.
“[The government is] playing with Israel’s security. It’s not just an ideological discussion anymore,” Lapid says. “It’s a security disaster. There are not enough soldiers, the army is stretched to the limit. There are more soldiers in the West Bank than in Gaza at the moment, the actual war is not going on right now.”
Ultra-Orthodox men of military age have been able to avoid the draft for decades by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed outline, to be discussed tomorrow by lawmakers, would see the age of exemption raised to 35.
According to the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, some 66,000 young men from the Haredi community received an exemption from military service over the past year, reportedly an all-time record.
A law that authorizes these exemptions expired in June 2023, and a temporary regulation that extended it is set to expire next week, after which the military will not be legally authorized to exempt Haredi young men from the draft and will need to start enlisting them.
As the deadline nears, the government has been rushing to legislate a new version of the law, with the ultra-Orthodox parties demanding continued exemption while other coalition factions, including members of Likud and the far-right Religious Zionist party, have been demanding that the Haredi community performs military service.
Last month, Gantz and Eisenkot — both former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff — presented an outline for the enlistment of Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli army.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
