Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the "Together" party, slammed "Yashar!" party chairman former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot over the latter's framework for haredi enlistment.
"We need a large, proactive military," Bennett said. "It is unacceptable for the IDF to be short 20,000 soldiers while 100,000 healthy young haredi men are not serving. In the next government under my leadership, we will enlist everyone, without exemptions and without backroom deals," Bennett said.
Taking aim at Eisenkot, he added, "The moment you start with ideas like a 30% exemption, committees, and frameworks, we've all been there, and we know from experience exactly how it ends: with nothing. Another round at the expense of the latest naive politician, without a single haredi actually enlisting."
"With us, everyone will enlist, without exemptions. Instead of a small and smart military, we will build a large, proactive, and lethal military," Bennett concluded.
In May, Mako reported that Eisenkot planned to grant 30% of haredi young men an exemption from enlistment; these young men would also not face sanctions.
Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Naftali Bennett launched a sharp attack on Eisenkot following the disclosure of a secret meeting between the former IDF Chief of Staff and Degel HaTorah chairman MK Moshe Gafni.
Speaking at a closed-door political event over the weekend, Bennett addressed Eisenkot's efforts to reach an understanding with the haredi factions on the draft law, mocking the attempt: "It’s naive, simply naive. You enter negotiations with them, and then they'll ask you 'what are the exemption parameters?' What Gafni and Deri have already forgotten, Eisenkot and Yair Golan have yet to learn. Therefore, there is absolutely no room for dialogue here. It's that simple."