MK (Kadima) Shaul Mofaz on Monday, 18 Sivan 5773 had harsh words for Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Ya’alon is opposed to personal sanctions against bnei yeshivos who fail to comply with new draft laws. Ya’alon feels that one cannot change a situation that existed for 65 years in the stroke of a moment and drastic changes such as these must be gradual. Ya’alon warns that efforts to compel immediate change will backfire and progress seen in recent years will be lost, using the air force Shachar program and the Netzach Yehuda infantry units as examples.
Mofaz praised Finance Minister (Yesh Atid) Yair Lapid and his party for standing firm in opposing Ya’alon’s position. Mofaz called on Yesh Atid to continue waging the war for equality, adding “don’t be a shmatah” and “don’t acquiesce”.
Mofaz feels that without holding bnei yeshivos who do not comply with new draft regulations personally responsible, compelling them to pay the consequences, the law “will not have any bite and it will become meaningless.”
Mofaz called Ya’alon’s position “offensive and harmful to the IDF,” accusing him of being “afraid of the chareidim and selling out.”
In response to Mofaz’s remarks, Defense Minister Ya’alon stated “he is the last one who should talk, constantly changing his position back and forth.”
Yesh Atid leader Finance Minister Yair Lapid is threatening Likud, vowing to break the coalition if the share the burden laws are not passed, including the clauses calling for personal consequences against bnei yeshivos failing to report for military service.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released a statement that “There will be many a crisis until the historic change comes about.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
So who IS leading the Likud Party? There seems to be a split even from within. Interesting.
Mofaz has changed his alliance more times than the avrage yeshivah boys changes hs socks, he is a hypercrite who never stood firm on his own idealogy, and now he is giving mussar??
“personal sanctions” means mass arrests of draft resistors, arrests of Roshei yeshivos and Gedolei, and closing down non-zionist yeshivos. It is to our relations with the Israeli government, what bombing Pearl Harbor was to Japanese-American relations in 1941, or what shelling Fort Sumter was to the United States in 1861.