From the Liveblog of
Monday, October 28, 2024
Smotrich rails against ultra-Orthodox draft exemption threat, cries over toll of war on his community
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slams the ultra-Orthodox for attempting to hold up the 2025 state budget over the issue of draft exemptions for Haredi youth and breaks down crying over the members of his own national-religious community who have fallen in the war, during his Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
Stating that he is “proud to be part of this community,” Smotrich declares that national-religious Jews are “paying a price disproportionate to its size in the population” and lauds those who fell in defense of the state as “righteous” and “scholars.”
“I strongly reject irresponsible statements by coalition officials who threaten to oppose the state budget until the conscription law is approved,” Smotrich continues, responding to reports that the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party had demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postpone a cabinet meeting dealing with the budget in order to first address the passage of a bill exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service.
“These statements harm the State of Israel and the IDF’s ability to win the war, and harm the Israeli economy,” Smotrich says, pledging that he “will not agree to any political rejection or any ultimatum in this matter.”
Anybody opposing the budget “will pay a price and bear full responsibility and this will have implications.”
Later, UTJ indicated it would withdraw the threat.
Arguing that “Israel is at war and is desperate for soldiers and manpower,” Smotrich calls on his fellow ministers to “take responsibility” and “listen to the cry” of a national-religious community “kneeling under the burden” of military service.
The Haredi leadership, he says, must “act in a real way to help the war effort and recruit many thousands of members of the ultra-Orthodox sector to the IDF and the security forces.”
“The IDF needs you, we need you, the people of Israel need you,” he says.
Asked about his view on the enlistment law currently being debated in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Smotrich replies that “there will not be a law if there is not a significant change” in it because “there is an existential and security need here.”
Following his remarks, Smotrich is challenged by a bereaved father who demands that the minister work to pass a law providing stipends to the siblings of fallen soldiers. The man yells that the current government has done nothing to help, stating that “a bereaved child cannot get a psychologist and the parents can’t leave their home.”
“I won’t paint my hands red” but will keep pushing on the issue, he states, referring to protesters calling for a hostage deal down the hall from the Religious Zionism faction room.
After the meeting, Smotrich sits down with the man, while MK Moshe Solomon hugs him.
Smotrich breaks down crying in his faction meeting, says national religious Jews disproportionately falling in the war pic.twitter.com/dE5SrUMKAE
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) October 28, 2024
