Former prime minister Naftali Bennett slammed coalition lawmakers and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party on Tuesday for not taking further action to oppose the government’s controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription bill.
“The reservists are being abandoned because they don’t have a lobby in Likud. The mark of disgrace for abandoning IDF soldiers will be branded on the foreheads of every coalition member,” Bennett said.
His remarks came after numerous Likud MKs struck down an order led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to double the VAT exemption ceiling on personal imports, during a vote in the Knesset plenum late on Wednesday night.
“Last night, we learned that when something truly matters to Likud MKs, they are capable of breaking the ‘sacred’ coalition discipline,” Bennett noted.
“If they truly cared about our soldiers, they would have done exactly the same thing against the draft-evasion law – and would have long ago enlisted healthy ultra-Orthodox young men to replace them [the reservists],” Bennett added.
Gov't advances law to conscript haredim into IDF
The government has been advancing a law it claims will conscript haredim into the IDF. Critics argue that the law is a political measure to appease the haredi parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, but that it will not enforce conscription. Meanwhile, the IDF has repeatedly warned that it lacks manpower, especially after over two years of war.
Only a small group of coalition lawmakers have openly expressed their plans to vote against the bill, ahead of its expected second and third readings in the Knesset plenum.
Bennett is a leading competitor in the race for Israel’s next prime minister. His party, Bennett 2026, has been trailing the Likud in recent polls for the elections currently set to take place no later than the end of October.