Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that by passing a slew of laws favorable to the haredim (ultra-Orthodox) at the end of the Knesset’s current term, he would solidify his alliance with them and go into October’s elections confident in the inviolability of his right-wing haredi bloc.
Instead, those very concessions are looking increasingly like a political liability.
The release Sunday of a recording of Rabbi Dov Lando, the preeminent leader of Lithuania's haredi community, accusing Religious Zionists pushing for haredi conscription of "inciting murder" has only reinforced that danger.
In other words, what looked like a successful effort to lock down his coalition partners may now complicate his effort to hold onto some voters within his own party and bloc.
By delivering the haredim nearly everything they wanted - including legislation, since blocked by the High Court of Justice, freezing the arrest of haredi draft evaders - Netanyahu has tied himself even more closely to the haredi parties' agenda on military conscription, an issue deeply unpopular among many of his own voters.
If that issue was already an electoral burden, Lando’s remarks made it considerably heavier. In the recording, he appeared to equate encouraging military service with encouraging murder.
“The wicked people are here – what can you do?” he noted. “There are wicked people, including among those who wear knitted kippot, no less than the others. I’m talking about those in the knitted kippah community who insist that people must enlist. I would ask them, according to their own approach… if the state sends soldiers to war for the honor of the state and people are killed, is that also permitted? That is actual murder. They are inciting murder. They wage wars not only for survival, but for the honor of the state.”
For Netanyahu, publicly criticizing the spiritual leader of one of the haredi parties on which he has relied for years is almost unheard of, regardless of how provocative the remarks. But this was apparently a bridge too far.
Without mentioning Lando by name, Netanyahu issued an unusually pointed response.
Netanyahu: IDF soldiers deserve profound appreciation
"I strongly reject the shocking statements made against IDF soldiers from the Religious Zionist community. IDF soldiers - religious, secular and haredi - leave their homes, their jobs and their families, and risk their lives to defend the State of Israel, its citizens, and the entire Jewish people. They deserve profound appreciation, gratitude and full support from every segment of the public, and certainly also from the Torah world."
The statement was remarkable not because Netanyahu defended the IDF – he routinely does – but because he publicly rebuked, albeit indirectly, the spiritual leader of one of the parties on which his political survival has long depended.
Degel HaTorah immediately pushed back, warning Netanyahu against criticizing its rabbinic leadership and reminding him where the party’s loyalties lie.
"The words of the great Torah sages are the Holy of Holies of the Jewish people, and we live by their teachings. Those who do not live within the Torah world and do not understand the depth of their words would do well not to rush to interpret them - and certainly not to attack them. Beware of their burning embers."
The exchange appeared to signal a rupture between Netanyahu and one of his closest political allies. That impression was reinforced when Netanyahu’s senior adviser, Yonatan Urich, responded on X/Twitter: “Do not speak ill of IDF fighters. I repeat and emphasize: Do not speak ill of IDF fighters. Not maybe. Not near. Not because. Not at all. We have zero tolerance for this.”
But the perception of a rupture, for Netanyahu and the Likud, may be good politics.
After associates of Lando argued that the rabbi had merely been engaged in a theoretical halachic discussion regarding a war fought "for the state's honor" rather than one of survival, Urich responded again.
"Here’s a suggestion: the party activists will shut their mouths for 99 days so that we can win the elections."
That exchange gets to the heart of Netanyahu’s political calculation. He and Urich know that the haredi issue has become an electoral liability. Religious Zionist voters, angered by Netanyahu’s repeated concessions to the haredim and the failure to broaden military conscription, are increasingly eyeing new right-wing parties that could ultimately align with Gadi Eisenkot and Naftali Bennett.
The flames of this anger were only fanned by Lando’s recent remark.
The timing of Netanyahu’s response is revealing. He waited roughly 24 hours before issuing it, suggesting that the statement was not an emotional reaction but a calculated political decision. And what is that political calculation? According to a Channel 11 report, it is to publicly increase the distance between Likud and the haredi parties as Election Day approaches without rupturing the alliance altogether.
Netanyahu plans to now distance himself from the haredim
"As we get closer to the elections and begin campaigning, Netanyahu plans to deepen the separation from the haredim and try to publicly distance himself from them," one senior Likud official was quoted as saying. Another senior official added that the prime minister "will have to walk a fine line so as not to directly attack the haredim and damage the bloc."
There is already evidence that strategy is underway. During the Knesset's final votes on the legislation suspending the arrest of haredi draft evaders and on the Basic Law: Torah Judaism, Netanyahu conspicuously was not in the plenum to cast a vote. His absence deprived the opposition of footage of him personally raising his hand in favor of measures that are deeply unpopular with much of the electorate and almost certain to feature prominently in opposition parties’ campaign advertisements.
Whether Netanyahu can pull off that balancing act is another question. The opposition parties are certain to ensure that every debate over military service, reserve duty, and haredi exemptions becomes, in effect, a debate about Netanyahu himself and the concessions he has made to keep the haredim at his side.
Lando, meanwhile, sought to walk back his remarks Monday night, telling a conference that they had been taken out of context.
“As was proven over the past day, when remarks I made in a private conversation were published, they were treated – with the hatred of amei ha’aretz, [‘those ignorant of Torah’] with distortion and with a complete lack of understanding.”
But the damage was already done.
The recording is now part of the public record. Israel’s critics abroad are unlikely to concern themselves with whether Lando was engaged in an abstract halachic discussion.
They will hear only a leading Israeli rabbinic authority apparently saying that the state sends soldiers to war for its own honor rather than out of military necessity. They are unlikely to spend much time trying to understand the theoretical halachic discussion in which sources close to Lando said those remarks were made. In addition to damaging Netanyahu politically at home, the comments provide additional ammunition to those seeking to demonize Israel and the IDF abroad.
But that is not what prompted Netanyahu’s unusually sharp response. That was prompted by politics.
As Election Day approaches, the haredi conscription issue – and Netanyahu’s far-reaching concessions to the haredi parties – are shaping up to be an albatross around the prime minister’s neck. Lando’s comments simply made that albatross heavier.