Netanyahu opponents blast attempt to distance himself from Haredi draft evasion as ‘pitiable spin’

Politicians seeking to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections accuse him of engaging in disingenuous “spin” by indicating that his next government would take steps to conscript members of the ultra-Orthodox community, after recently passing a series of laws aimed at preventing enforcement against Haredi draft evaders.

“Netanyahu thinks the serving public is dumb,” and his comments walking back recent legislative efforts are a “pitiable spin,” declares former prime minister Naftali Bennett in a statement.

In closed-door comments published in the Hebrew press, which the Haaretz daily says were distributed by Netanyahu’s Likud party, the prime minister reportedly promised that if reelected he would pursue conscription legislation that meets the IDF’s needs, but also indicated that full-time yeshiva students would be exempted from having to serve. In the comments, he also distanced himself from an unpopular law his coalition passed ordering police to end arrests of Haredi draft dodgers.

“After 4 years of personally preventing the recruitment of Haredim, ignoring the warnings of the chief of staff and the cries of the reservists who ask for reinforcements, Netanyahu thinks that this time the people of Israel will believe him,” Bennett says, adding that the premier “knows that he will not be able to recruit even one Haredi” because Shas chairman Aryeh Deri “doesn’t allow him.”

In a post on X, Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot accuses Netanyahu of evading responsibility for his actions only weeks after passing “a despicable evasion law that weakens the IDF and Israeli society as a whole” while simultaneously having “prevented a real conscription law.”

Netanyahu’s comments are more “vile and cynical spin by a man who has lost all connection to Israel’s security,” posts The Democrats chairman Yair Golan.

Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman says that Netanyahu “has no government without the draft dodgers,” referring to his political alliance with Haredi parties.

MK Dan Illouz, an opponent of the legislation who recently quit Likud due to what he described as its ongoing betrayal of its voters, posts that “this arrogance toward the voter, and the treatment of him as an idiot, will only worsen Likud’s situation.”