Lapid hails Haredi draft orders, but says more are needed

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid welcomes the first round of draft orders sent by the IDF to members of the ultra-Orthodox community this week but criticizes the army for only working to mobilize an additional 3,000 Haredim this year.

On Sunday, the military sent out the first batch of 1,000 draft orders to ultra-Orthodox men aged 18-26 on Sunday morning, in the first of three such waves scheduled for the coming four weeks.

Addressing reporters during his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Lapid states that while the process of recruitment is starting slowly, it will be “impossible to stop it.”

“Experience shows that at first they will shout, and swear that they will not come, then they will discover that they do not have a passport, and they have no [government] funding, and then they will come,” Lapid says.

“It will be necessary to recruit at least 10,000 ultra-Orthodox young people, and they must be recruited quickly, already this year,” he continues, declaring that his party will take action in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to “make sure that enough orders are sent so that there are enough soldiers.”

Speaking with the committee earlier this month, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the military currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers but can only accommodate the enlistment of an additional 3,000 ultra-Orthodox this year, which would be in addition to the 1,800 Haredi soldiers who are drafted annually.

Asked if he was being more Catholic than the pope by demanding a significantly larger initial mobilization, Lapid replies that he is critical of the army “because the question isn’t what they can do but rather what the state ordered them to do.”

“The chief of staff said they need 12-15 battalions, this is the operational need, that’s what they need to mobilize. The state defined the need, an operational need, and the army needs to enlist everybody,” he says.