‘Netanyahu’s legacy’: Opposition leaders blame PM for Haredi protests, vow to enact change

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett complains that he has been stuck in traffic for two and a half hours due to the massive ultra-Orthodox anti-conscription protests taking place up and down the country, and vows to put an end to it if he wins the election.

Speaking to the Reshet Bet radio station, Bennett characterizes the demonstration as “a group of privileged draft dodgers” who “decided to shut down the country.”

He says that if he wins the upcoming election, “everything will change,” and Haredi men who evade conscription and choose not to participate in the labor market will have their benefits cut.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid places the blame for the demonstrations on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing out in a post on X that they were organized by his coalition partners.

“Instead of telling them that anyone who does not enlist will not receive a single shekel from the state, while soldiers are being killed every day in Lebanon, he gives them more and more of the working and serving public’s money so that they won’t enlist in the IDF,” Lapid complains.

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman asserts that the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties “are holding the Haredi public hostage” and are only out “for power, honor, and money,” while “the bill is paid again by those who serve, work, and pay taxes.”

Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot describes the protest as “Netanyahu’s legacy” and pledges that “the next government will act according to the national interests of the State of Israel, and not according to the interests of Deri, Gafni, and Goldknopf.”