[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
MK (The Movement) Elazar Stern was interviewed on Knesset TV. When asked if he plans to vote in favor of the Share the Burden Bill, he explained “at this stage, I do not believe so”, adding this is his personal position as he is not the representative of the party.
In his last post in the IDF prior to retiring, Head of Personnel Branch, Stern worked tirelessly to close down the hesder network. He feels that the religious soldiers should integrate into the mainstream IDF as he did, adding the soldiers simply do not pull their weight as they do not serve three years as the regular soldiers do.
Stern hopes the current plan will change. He adds “I hope hesder soldiers will realize the myth has been broken,” adding the 1,400 who enter the army are not “the cream of the crop” and “without competition” regarding their motivation and abilities. Stern stated he does not believe they are the envy of all and that there are the best. “They are good, but no better than others. They are fine.
“One of the disasters for Am Yisrael is that they listened to the demands of the chareidim” he added in reference to chareidim sitting and learning. “I am in favor of hesder” but he feels “they should not use chareidim as an example,” unwilling to accept the fact that hesder students have a curtailed IDF service.
See the Hebrew interview:
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(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
“One of the disasters for Am Yisrael is … the chareidim” coming from a kipa-wearing guy.
Stern hates Dati Leumi and religious soldiers as much as charedim – or more? He was infuriated when several religious soldiers left a performace where women were singing.
“One of the biggest issues today in the IDF is Jewish identity.” – another one of his.
These are the guys charedim will have to deal with if they chas veshalom enter the military.
If the Hesder students were smart, they would drop Bennett who fooled them with his false promises to refuse evicting Jews from settlements when next week there will be another Amona eviction and they would join the charedim in their war against the IDF.
“they should not use chareidim as an example,” unwilling to accept the fact that hesder students have a curtailed IDF service.
“One of the disasters for Am Yisrael is that they listened to the demands of the chareidim” he added in reference to chareidim sitting and learning.
Based on the 2 minute clip that you posted, you seem to have put words in his mouth. In the first quote he says that “they should not use chareidim as an example….to take advantage of the medinah” and in the second quote he did not expand on how “One of the disasters for Am Yisroel….”.
It doesn’t really matter whether you like Elazar Stern or not. Please don’t editorialize news articles.