Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, the media, and the IDF reservist’s protest group Brothers in Arms are using the crisis regarding the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) exemption from IDF service as an excuse to bring down the government, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accused in a weekly press conference on Monday.
Smotrich’s criticism was directed at Baharav-Miara’s refusal last week to support a government decision on the matter due to a lack of detail, and protests by Brothers in Arms in the predominantly haredi Mea She’arim neighborhood on Sunday against the exemption.
Brothers in Arms, a prominent protest organization that arose in 2023 to oppose the government’s judicial reforms, held similar protests last year in the predominantly haredi city of Bnei Brak but has refrained from doing so since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7. At the war’s onset, the organization set up and ran a logistics center to provide soldiers and evacuees with missing equipment and other necessities.
“I have a message to the haredi public: the images you saw yesterday in Jerusalem do not reflect what the Israeli public thinks about you,” Smotrich said. He accused Brothers in Arms of being “extremist political activists” and said that they “do not represent any group in the Israeli public.”
'Dialogue and discourse'
According to Smotrich, integrating the haredi public required “dialogue and true discourse,” and in addition to Brothers in Arms, the “legal system of the High Court [of Justice] and the attorney-general” must act to “support the success of the mission and not cause a severe schism and hostilities that will not bring to the recruitment of one more soldier.”
Smotrich argued that while during the judicial reforms, protesters called for there to be a process and not one-sided action, now those same protesters were demanding one-sided action to draft haredim into the IDF.
Contrary to the judicial reforms, which were new legislative initiatives, the law regarding IDF service already exists and requires haredi men to serve. In response to The Jerusalem Post pointing this out, Smotrich said that many laws were not implemented immediately and that calling for immediate implementation of the draft law was hypocritical.
The legal exemption from IDF service for haredi men expired at the end of June 2023, and a government decision from last June giving itself until the end of March 2024 to come up with a new law expired as well. In addition, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state can no longer provide funding for haredi yeshivot for students who no longer have a legal exemption from service.
Several other Israeli politicians addressed the haredi draft issue in their weekly press conferences ahead of their party meetings.
Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid called on Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to order the IDF to begin drafting haredi men. “Facing the bravery of the fighters on the battlefield, bravery of leaders is necessary,” Lapid said. Addressing Gallant directly, he said, “You have a majority in the Knesset, you have a majority in the people of Israel, to follow the law, draft thousands of haredi soldiers, and begin the big reparation that the State of Israel needs.”
Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman said, “A people that does not have shared values, that does not have a shared vision, will not survive.” Liberman called on all of the “leaders of Zionist parties in the opposition” as well as National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz and the “true parts of the Likud” to begin “dialogue on our vision for the day after.”
Liberman said in response to a question by the Post that he did not expect the IDF to begin drafting haredi men by force, but that he did expect sanctions for those who evade service, including a ban from leaving the country, receiving a driver’s license, and more.