Yesh Atid leader Finance Minister Yair Lapid is a happy man as the Shaked Committee voted to go with criminal sanctions against chareidim that do not comply with the IDF draft. The senior cabinet minister held a press conference, seated alongside colleagues Science Minister Yaakov Peri who headed the Peri Committee formulating the draft law, preceding the Shaked Committee. Also present was party MK Ofir Shelach, who serves on the Shaked Committee and has announced numerous times in the media that without criminal sanctions in the new draft law, his party will break from the coalition and topple the government.
Lapid stated loud and clear that chareidim will not just be called to the IDF in four years, but this will begin next month as every chareidi male eligible for the draft will have to report to the Bakum induction base.
He stressed how he is motivate by love and not the opposite, for he knows that this will compel chareidim to serve in the IDF and join the workplace and this will permit the community to meld into society as well as permit a higher lifestyle – permitting chareidim to earn a parnasa respectfully.
Responding to the press conference Labor MK Yitzchak Shmuli said that while the new law does represent some improvement, it is a far cry from equality in sharing the burden. He added the new reality is such that it appears the size of one’s yarmulke represents the size of the deferment and this is unacceptable. Shmuli came out strongly against hesder yeshivos and demands equality regarding their military service as well.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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10 Responses
Lapid has overlooked the Big Boss in Heaven. I expect All-Hell to break loose within the near future, as hashem shows lapid and the rest of his arrogant cabal who is really in charge of things in this world.
“Ki Lo yitosh hashem Es Amo.”
Assuming he isn’t stopped, in a generation historians will look at this point in time as the beginning of the end of zionist state. Given the choice between giving up Torah and Mitsvos, and ending support for the State of Israel, most hareidim will choose the latter, leading to undermining the state’s position, and its eventual replacement by an Arab state.
P.S. Though a more likely scenario is that the other right wing parties will step in to stop Lapid, probably by ending conscription and/or establish religious objections as a ground of exemption from the military, and if not the right, then the left will seek to ally with the hareidim based on ending conscription and support for left wing economic policies.
Lapid is today’s Homon (Rav Steinman shlita”h referred to him as Amolek. Presumably he said so on the basis of the Vilna Gaon who writes that before Moshiach comes we will suffer from Amolek who comes from within Klal Yisrael). Bibi is today’s Achashverosh, swayed by the money and Kovod he receives from Lapid and his cronies.
Both will have their mapoloh soon, as long as we listen to our Gedolim, like they did in the Megillah.
The only thing that worries me with this comparison is the fact that after Homon’s downfall, Achashverosh still stayed in power.
In reality, the law proposed by the Shaked committee goes so far in favor of the charedim that the Supreme Court may strike it down, if it ever passes through the Knesset and becomes law.
First, while it is true that under the Shaked committee’s proposal every chareidi male eligible for the draft will have to report to an induction base – not one single solitary charedi will be required to actually be drafted for the next four years.
Second, if a total of 5,500 charedim are willingly serving in the army in four years – not one single solitary charedi will be drafted against his will and no charedi will face any sanctions for not serving. To put this in proportion: (1) in four years there will be some 64,000 charedi males of draftable age; (2) given current trends more than 5,500 charedim were projected to be serving voluntarily in the IDF by 2018 anyway, even without any change to the law.
In short, the proposal of the Shaked committee takes the status quo and effectively codifies it into law. Nothing will change other than that: (1) charedi males will be required to make a visit to an induction center (and a special induction center dedicated to them and to them alone has already been built), and (2) charedi males over the age of 22 will no longer be required to declare ‘torati umanuti’ and will be free to join the workforce without serving for a single day in the army.
ויבא המן
Does anyone else see how this storyline follows Purim’s storyline?
Haman is Lapid, or is he Ahashverosh. Who is Bennett?
Any thoughts? I love how Hashem runs this world, and how he times wicked decrees around Purim. Wow.. Ayn milvado..
Does anyone see a big money making Purim Mask sold in Bnei Brak, or Yerushalayim, with Lapid doubling as Haman, with sonei Torah on his forehead.. I bentch some Jew to send an order for 25,000 such masks in China, and sell them out in a day!
@Yagel Libi, so you’re entire argument is based on “projections” that “if” the magic 5500 serve then we won’t see talmidei chachomim imprisoned and dragged to the army away from their torah learning, and for non-learners to enter the toxic anti-torah atmosphere of the army. You seem quite happy to take the risk, but you seem quite happy anywhy despite this torah crises.
What about those 5500? Why is their blood less red? Do we really want 5500 to go to an army that is ill-suited to living according halochoh. An army that has atrocious promiscuity and where time and time-again frum people have been forced to infringe on halochah or be court martialed.
If most won’t be drafted, according to your quoted “projections”, then why force them all to report to induction centres? Isn’t the trap obvious to you? Are you trying to sell the same snake oil or are you just an unwitting (or dim-witted) accomplice?
These weasel words, and oh-it’ll-be-all-right-schemes ain’t fooling no-one.
The Shaked committee would be taken in good faith to a small extend only if they would announce plans for a segregated part of the army – where men wouldn’t be forced to serve alongside women, where they wouldn’t be forced to attend the “cultural” events (with women singing etc. etc.), where they wouldn’t be forced to be metaltel muksa or over hotzohoh on shabbos in non life-threatening situations, where a real posek would be consulted before acts of gross immorality and murder are committed without sufficient justification, etc. etc. etc. They haven’t even explored that side of it.
#4- If they were getting sufficient numbers of volunteers, why waste that by switching to conscription which will alienate many of the volunteers? If they wanted higher hareidi participation in the economy, why not end conscription and outlaw discrimination against hareidim (the Kenesset voted against such a law – meaning the job discrimination against hareidim is clearly tolerated and encouraged as a matter of policy). In truth they are using the a version of the “cantonist” system: give us a quote of Jews we can convert, and we’ll let the rest of you alone for a while – we already learned that the correct response to this is massive resistance. The reality is that learning Torah is the right of every Jew, even if he is poor, non-white, no yichus, no protecksia; if the more zionist frum won’t stand up against the hiloni bigots, then the “fanatical” hareidim will.
#8- If the reality is that Torah learning is the right of every Jew, why don’t you exercise your right to do so???
Maybe the Charedim should not have boycotted the Shaked Committee.