Lapid slams Netanyahu’s proposal on ultra-Orthodox draft bill as ‘complete fraud’

Opposition leader Yair Lapid calls Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outline for an update to the current legal framework regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment “a complete fraud,” and charges that no Haredim will enlist in the Israel Defense Forces under the proposal.

In a video statement, Lapid says the plan would cause “tremendous damage to the economy” and stir up “discrimination between blood and blood.”

“It is an insult to the soldiers, the reservists, the dead and the wounded. This law cannot be passed in the face of opposition from the defense minister and two former IDF chiefs of staff.”

He calls for war cabinet minister Benny Gantz and war cabinet observer Gadi Eisenkot — the two former IDF chiefs of staff who have voiced opposition to the proposal — to veto the bill.

Lapid’s statement came as Gantz announced that his National Unity party would leave the coalition if Netanyahu’s bill passes.

Ultra-Orthodox men of military age have been able to avoid the draft for decades by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption.

Successive Netanyahu governments have struggled to come to a consensus on legislation dealing with the issue since a 2017 High Court decision determined blanket military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to be discriminatory and unconstitutional, and ordered the state to find a solution to the issue.