From the Liveblog of
Monday, November 18, 2024
Lapid says Netanyahu government encouraging draft evasion and civil uprising
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"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is encouraging “draft evasion and civil uprising” by supporting legislation to maintain the widespread exemption of Haredi yeshiva students from military service, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“When demonstrators in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem shout ‘We will die rather than enlist’ while IDF soldiers die every day, it is a civil uprising,” Lapid asserts.
Anyone praising the avoidance of military service on religious grounds is desecrating God’s name, says Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman ahead of his faction meeting.
Liberman slams Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, the head of the Slabodka Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and a leading ultra-Orthodox rabbi, for claiming that draft evasion is a “mitzvah.”
