'Shut up, draft-dodger!': Knesset panel holds heated meeting on Haredi draft law, as new chair urges unity

Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern launches a heated attack on newly appointed Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth, accusing him of failing to attend the majority of committee meetings on ultra-Orthodox enlistment held before he became chair.

In response, Shas MK Yinon Azoulay accuses Stern of arrogance, prompting the former head of the IDF’s manpower directorate to yell, “Shut up, draft-dodger!” at the ultra-Orthodox lawmaker.

Stern also insists that military police should not be used to arrest Haredi draft evaders and that only civilian law enforcement should be used for such operations.

Opening the discussion, the first to deal with the topic of Haredi enlistment since he replaced former chairman Yuli Edelstein, Bismuth tells lawmakers that he has held “dozens of meetings” since being appointed to head the committee last week in “an effort to hear all the voices in Israeli society and to conduct the discussions here in cooperation, together.”

“Until now, I have mainly heard, in the discussions here and in general in the discourse, what is not agreed upon. It is time for us to talk a little about what is, because there are also agreements in Israeli society. I want, in this committee, for us to talk about what is [agreed upon], and that way we will move forward and build the right atmosphere,” he says, adding that “we are all in favor of a draft law because the army needs soldiers.”

“We will look for what unites us,” he continues, insisting that “this is a democracy, and everyone can say whatever they want, up to a certain limit — when it harms the army or my ultra-Orthodox brothers.”