Lapid threatens to publicly shame MKs who vote to exempt Haredim from IDF 

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid warns coalition MKs that their voters will remember if they vote in favor of exempting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service and calls on them to resist pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“If an MK votes in favor of evading the IDF, his voters in the primaries should know that he is no longer a Zionist and that he is endangering their security,” he says, referencing reports that Netanyahu has been pressuring Likud MKs to support the controversial bill, which is set to be discussed in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday.

“Over the past two days, Netanyahu and his office have been applying a crazy amount of pressure on MKs from the coalition in order to convince them to support the evasion law after all. All to gain a few more days in office,” he says — arguing that efforts to secure a majority in favor of the bill constitute “a humiliation for Zionism [and] a betrayal of IDF fighters.”

Citing IDF data presented this week showing that the army’s manpower shortage is set to get worse, Lapid warns that he will target politically any lawmakers who support the bill.

“We will buy billboards all over the State of Israel, and if you support this law, in every corner of the country there will be a sign with your face and underneath it will be written: ‘Supports evasion from the IDF during wartime.'”

“This will not fly under the radar…there will not be a single Israeli who does not know about it. Your children will know, your neighbors will know, there will not be a single Likud voter who does not know that you have deserted the IDF fighters,” he adds.