Liberman: Passing IDF draft law will ‘eliminate the Zionist project’

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman says the coalition will “eliminate the Zionist project” if it passes a law granting blanket exemptions from IDF military service.

He says that the only possible model is for full enlistment of all Israeli males, with no exemptions whatsoever, either to IDF or national service.

“The protest movement [against the government’s judicial overhaul legislation] has created a one-time chance to correct problems created a long time ago,” says Liberman regarding the military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.

“The era of suckers has ended. The situation can’t continue where those who serve do reserve duty, work, pay taxes, defend us, and also pay for the idlers and draft dodgers.”

Liberman says the demographic increase of the ultra-Orthodox community will in several decades leave Israel socially splintered “like Lebanon, with different tribes who have different interests, and fight among each other.”

Liberman has long championed universal military or national service, although during his tenure as defense minister he proposed a plan for very gradual increases in ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the IDF.