Netanyahu's Sudden Conversion, 90 Days Before an Election

Four years of blocking Haredi conscription, and now Netanyahu says he's found religion on the issue.

Just weeks ago, his coalition passed a law shielding tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders from arrest. Now he's telling a closed-door meeting the law "did not succeed."

He's promising something different after the election: "we will establish a broad national government that will immediately pass a comprehensive conscription law that meets the IDF's needs".

Anyone who is not studying Torah will either enlist or go to prison."

Bold talk from the man whose own coalition just voted 58-54 to protect the exemption system.

Naftali Bennett wasn't buying it. "He thinks the public that serves is stupid," Bennett said, according to Ynet. "He has been abusing them for four years and thinks he can make them forget it in 90 days."

Yair Golan piled on, calling the leaked comments "yet another pathetic and cynical spin by a man who has lost all connection to Israel's security," adding that someone who "nurtured, financed and institutionalized the draft-dodging enterprise for over a decade will not suddenly become a Zionist and the great recruiter."

Gadi Eisenkot went for the jugular, saying Netanyahu is "afraid of the consequences of his failures, afraid of not being re-elected, and afraid of a state commission of inquiry," per Israel National News.

Here's the arithmetic nobody in the closed-door meeting apparently ran: Netanyahu's coalition survives only because Haredi parties stay in it, and Haredi parties stay in it only because the exemption survives.

Promising to end the exemption after the election he needs their votes to win is not a policy. It's a hostage negotiation where the hostage-taker also writes the ransom note.

The High Court already froze the current evasion-shield law pending a ruling on whether to kill it outright.

So the "new" conscription plan is being unveiled in a closed room, with no bill text, no enforcement mechanism, and no explanation of how Aryeh Deri's votes survive contact with actual Haredi enlistment.

Reservists doing their sixth or seventh rotation since the war began are being asked to trust a 90-day countdown that starts the day after the ballots are counted. What happens on day 91 if Deri says no, again?

#Israel #Netanyahu #HarediDraft #Election #IDF

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