The IDF is not ready to enlist haredi recruits, and haredim have a good reason not to wish to enlist, MK Galit Distel Atbaryan (Likud) said.
Atbaryan, who is not haredi herself, expressed support for the haredi public, saying that the army is a "secularizing army."
"What is happening to the haredi community is infuriating and sad," she told Arutz Sheva - Israel National News. "The haredim have no voice in the media and they have a case, and we need to listen to them. The campaign against them is so populist."
"It's evident in the fact that a representative of the IDF came to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and said that the IDF is not prepared to draft more than 3,000 haredim a year. If that is the case, then the entire campaign is a lie. At the conference I held with the haredi soldiers, they all told me that the IDF is not prepared to enlist haredim.
"A haredi combat soldier who enlisted in 2013 along with 200 other haredim sat at the conference and said that he is the only, only one who did not take off his kipa (skullcap) and beard. They all became irreligious. There's a culture shock. The IDF does not allow haredi soldiers to become officers and their commanders are secular people who do not understand their ways. It's basically the Secularization Army of Israel."
She added, "The IDF is passing this hot potato between the court and the political echelon, they have a lot of distortions, populism, and a lack of public awareness, and there are not enough people who speak the truth."
Separately, Atbaryan is now advancing a bill which would propose blocking prisoners affiliated with terror groups from receiving visitors: "We have an anomaly here, where terror groups who hold women and men prisoner, and terrorists who acted on their own, receive visits from family members. I am embarrassed that I needed to legislate a law like this. The bill passed its preliminary reading and I really hope that the path to its final legislation will be easy."
However, there is pressure to torpedo the bill: "There is mostly pressure from the courts, this bill passed with the help of the Prime Minister's Office and Justice Ministry. The National Security Council has more conditions, for example, to allow Red Cross visits so as not to allow international provocations. I hope the court will not shoot it down."