Moshe Arbel
Moshe ArbelYonatan Sindel/Flash90

Health and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel responded this morning (Tuesday) to criticism against the draft law and claimed that it is better for the IDF to deal with the "hidden unemployment", as he put it, that exists in its ranks.

"Before we draft yeshiva students, we also need to take care of the hidden unemployment in the IDF. Azrieli Mall is the army's largest base," Arbel said in an interview with the haredi radio station Kol Barama.

At the last meeting of the heads of the coalition, the heads of the haredi parties demanded that the draft law be quickly promoted.

The Likud party expressed opposition to the law that would comprehensively exempt haredi from conscription. On the other hand, the haredi made it clear that nothing would be promoted at the winter conference before the conscription law.

In an interview with the newspaper Yated Ne'eman, the chairman of the Degal HaTorah faction of the UTJ party, Knesset member Moshe Gafni, said that the conscription law will be introduced at the beginning of the Knesset's winter session. "Many are writing things, most of which have no connection to reality, as was the case this week as well. There is a clear conclusion that at the beginning of the winter session the law will come up not politically but professionally."

Gafni noted that he told Netanyahu "that all publicity of the issue is unnecessary, since the conscription law is not a political law. There are facts. There are summaries. This professional law will come up at the beginning of the winter session of the Knesset."