Lapid: PM only concerned with investigations, draft law ‘an insult to the state’

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not concerned with the legislative fights roiling his coalition partners, but is merely worried about avoiding prosecution in the corruption probes into his affairs.

“There is no one in the State of Israel who thinks the prime minister really cares about the draft issue, or the budget. The only thing he’s preoccupied with are the investigations. How he’ll stop the investigations,” says Lapid at the weekly Yesh Atid faction meeting.

He is referring to an ongoing government battle between the ultra-Orthodox parties, who are demanding a bill exempting ultra-Orthodox students from military service be advanced and the secularist Yisrael Beytenu party, headed by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, as well as the Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party, which is seeking to pass the 2019 state budget by next week.

“What’s happening in the government is not a fight over principles,” adds Lapid. “It’s a bunch of cynical politicians who don’t care about dividing Israel for some headlines. They are politicians who are dealing only with one thing: Themselves, their seats, their budgets, their corruption.”

“The draft-dodging law is an insult to the state, to every IDF soldier, and to the Torah,” says Lapid. “Nowhere in the Torah does it say that you can send someone else to be killed on your behalf.”

— Marissa Newman