Likud backbencher said seeking to replace Edelstein as chair of committee responsible for Haredi conscription bill

Likud backbencher Hanoch Milwidsky is reportedly gearing up to challenge his fellow party member Yuli Edelstein for the leadership of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

According to the Ynet news site, there is growing pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from within his Likud party to oust Edelstein over the committee chair’s failure to draft a law on Haredi military conscription deemed acceptable by ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, potentially jeopardizing the government.

Edelstein says any conscription law would have to include sanctions on ultra-Orthodox individuals who evade military service. Haredi parties, which quit the government last week over the issue, accuse him of reneging on previous agreements to soften his stance on sanctions.

Hebrew media reports have indicated that Netanyahu already proposed removing Edelstein as head of the committee in a bid to placate ultra-Orthodox party Shas. The party reportedly rejected the proposal as too little, too late, and instead insisted on immediate progress on a bill enshrining Haredi yeshiva students’ exemption from military service.

Milwidsky himself has assailed calls to draft Haredi young men en masse, saying in a Knesset speech on Thursday that although he is secular, “as a Jew” he will refuse to take part in “harming the world of Torah.”

“We need soldiers, yes, but no soldier will help if we break the thing that truly holds us up. And that thing is not some Western value that was born 200 years ago — it’s the Torah. It’s Judaism,” he said.