Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made clear Monday that he backs Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision to discontinue the IDF's working relationship with Har Bracha Yeshiva, which is headed by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed.
"The Prime Minister's resolute stand against the phenomenon of refusal is well known to all,” his bureau stated. “The Prime Minister has not intervened in the matter of Har Bracha and he gives the Defense Minister his backing.”
"However,” the statement added, “the Prime Minister hopes that the matter will be solved through understanding in the end.”
Netanyahu thus rejected requests by coalition members, including Science and Technology Minister Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz, to intervene in the dispute. Hershkowitz spoke with Netanyahu and asked him to enter the fray personally and solve the problem, which he said could lead to a major rift with the religious Zionist public.
Hershkovitz requested that a way be found to calm the storm that erupted around the subject of conscientious refusal. He emphasized that there must be no refusal of orders, nor protests in the army, but that neither must a yeshiva be ejected from the Hesder arrangement.