Ultra-Orthodox Jews must be drafted by IDF, Israel's defense minister says

A new proposal for a bill that would end the blanket exemption given to ultra-Orthodox Israelis (haredim) should only be promoted with the consent of all of the parties in the coalition, including the haredi parties themselves, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement to the press on Wednesday evening.

The speech was Gallant's first public address on the issue after a series of legal, legislative, and security demands brought it to the fore earlier this month, The Jerusalem Post reports.

Gallant said that there was a "real and direct" need to lengthen the service of mandatory and reserve IDF soldiers but that "the war has proven that everyone must enter under the stretcher." 

The issue of "sharing the burden" was a "national challenge for 75 years," but Israel was facing a challenge the likes of which it had not faced in 75 years – and now was the time to make unprecedented decisions, Gallant said.

"Without physical existence, there is no spiritual existence," Gallant said, referring to haredi Torah study in yeshivot.

The defense minister called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead a joint effort in the coalition and, perhaps even with the support of the opposition, to bring forward a plan for haredi IDF service. He added that any plan that was accepted by all parties in the coalition would be acceptable to him, but that he would not bring forward a plan that was not accepted by all of them. This includes National Unity, the centrist party that joined the coalition after the war began.

Haredi factions 'irate' at Netanyahu

National Unity chairman, Minister-without-portfolio Benny Gantz, responded to Gallant on X that he would "act together with the defense minister, with all of the parties in the Knesset, and with all of Israeli society in order to promote soon an Israeli service plan with broad agreement." Gantz used the name of a plan he and fellow Minister-without-portfolio Gadi Eisenkot presented on Monday that would require all Israelis at age 18, including Haredim and Arab Israelis, to serve either in the IDF or in civil national service.

Opposition leader and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid said in response that Yesh Atid was going to propose its own bill next week that was "egalitarian, efficient, and fair."

"The Likud just has to behave like a Zionist party and vote for it. We cannot win together if we do not enlist together, Lapid said."

According to Israeli media, haredi factions Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) were "irate" at the defense minister's statement. "It was full of catchphrases; this is not how to solve a crisis," a source told KAN News.

Another source in UTJ warned that "if [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu wants to remain prime minister by summertime, he must get a conscription law approved in the Knesset."