From the Liveblog of
Monday, July 7, 2025
Lapid says he hopes Netanyahu will end war with full hostage deal, slams efforts to pass Haredi ‘draft evasion law’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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 wishes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump, luck in securing a comprehensive hostage deal that will end the war in Gaza.
“What is really needed is not a partial deal, nor a truce, but to stop the war and return all the hostages,” he tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
Turning to the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription, Lapid slams the prime minister for his efforts to pass an “evasion law” exempting Haredi men from military service.
“Before Netanyahu got on the plane, he was only concerned with one thing: another attempt to assure the Haredim of a shameful, disgraceful evasion law, designed for only one thing: that the coalition survive for a few more weeks or months,” Lapid states.
The Haredim conditioned the survival of the government on legislation ensuring that “no young Haredi enlists, does not risk his life, does not defend the country,” he says. “This is open blackmail, and [Netanyahu] immediately gave in to it.”
“Netanyahu ordered the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuli Edelstein, to show the draft of the conscription law to the representatives of the Haredim so that they would be kind enough to approve the law. The Haredim are seeing the draft before… the head of the IDF, before the reservist organizations, even before the members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,” he says.
When the draft of the bill is published, he adds, any clause that delays the application of sanctions against those who dodge military service will mean that the legislation is “not a law, it is fraud.”
Addressing the Haredim, he declares, “This law will not pass, and even if it does, there will be a different government here next year, and the first thing we will do is repeal this law. What has worked for you all these years will no longer work.”
A copy of the revised bill is expected to be presented to lawmakers this afternoon.
The Times of Israel Community.