From the Liveblog of
Monday, March 11, 2024
Lapid says Haredim can’t shirk military service
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"
Israel cannot continue to fight on multiple fronts without ultra-Orthodox troops, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares, asserting that “the IDF is stretched to the limit.”
Speaking with reporters at the opening of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting, Lapid states that “if there is a flare-up in the north, there are not enough soldiers to manage it” and calls the debate over the conscription law “no longer just an ideological debate” but an “existential” one.
“Today there are 66,000 ultra-Orthodox youth of conscription age. That’s 105 battalions that don’t enlist,” he says, arguing that “if the State of Israel does not recruit the Haredi young people, it has no right to send more and more reserve orders to people who have already done 70, 90 and 120 days of reserve duty this year.”
Complaining that the Ministerial Committee for Legislation rejected his party’s universal enlistment bill, Lapid accuses the government of being more concerned with the “security of the coalition” than with that of the state.
Netanyahu’s government will “try to come up with an outline that looks like a solution, but is not a solution,” he adds.
Minister Benny Gantz’s proposed enlistment plan, which calls for gradual annual increases in Haredi service but does not detail specific quotas, is “an outline in which no Haredi would enlist,” he says. “It will not work. We cannot continue to deceive ourselves.”
Lapid heaps criticism on Netanyahu, referencing an unsourced Channel 12 report that said Netanyahu conveyed a message to the Haredi parties that “he will be sure to compensate them retroactively” if judges find that the current government policy exempting Haredim from military and national service is illegal, at which point Haredim who do not serve would be considered to be breaching the law, and they and the institutions where they study would be denied state funds.
Turning to Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef’s declaration that Haredim would “go abroad” if forcibly enlisted in the military, Lapid says that “no one wants them to go abroad, but it’s no longer a theoretical debate. If they don’t enlist, they won’t get money.”
“Saying they need to enlist isn’t [an attack] against him or the world of Torah. Soldiers are dying every day and we don’t have enough of them,” he adds.
