No progress has been made in ongoing talks at the President’s Residence over the government’s judicial overhaul, National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz said during a press conference ahead of his party’s weekly meeting on Monday.
The talks were “not really advancing in any of the issues and specifically not on the issue of the Judicial Selection Committee,” Gantz said, referring to the law proposal that would give the coalition a majority on the committee that appoints Israel’s judges.
Gantz warned that he would “not allow for a waste of time while that will enable the coalition to advance the [judicial reform] legislation at the ‘time and place’ that it prefers,” adding that while he does not have a deadline in mind, he will know when to stop and reconsider the talk’s effectivity.
Issue of haredi conscription into IDF
Gantz also addressed the issue of haredi conscription into the IDF, which expires at the end of July but has been in the headlines recently after the haredi parties demanded that it pass by the end of May along with the national budget.
Minister of Defense Benny Gantz at the opening ceremony of the Odem program, a national groundbreaking program for the development of technological leadership in young high school students is part of the elite Talpiot program, in the northern town of Katzrin, on September 21, 2022. (credit: MICHAEL GILADI/FLASH90)“There needs to be dialogue on this important national topic,” he said. Turning to Israel’s haredi and Arab citizens, Gantz said that they are “good, vital and inseparable part of the State of Israel,” but that the issue of national service “must be solved.”
Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid struck a harsher tone. In a press conference ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly meeting, Lapid presented his proposal for a “National Conscription Law” that would demand all Israelis to do national service save for a set number of “exceptional” yeshiva students who would receive an exemption. The only difference between this and the existing law would be that haredim who do receive an exemption from service will be able to join the workforce at age 22, instead of the current 26.
“I want to say something to the haredim – the current situation cannot go on. It is an open wound. It cannot be that our children serve in the country, endanger their lives, and you say ‘That does not interest us, we have political power and will use it to free our children and even raise their stipends at your expense,'” Lapid said.
“Joint life does not deal just with rights, but also with duties. We have a joint fate and Israeli society needs a new social contract. No one is heckling you – what we are offering to you is exactly what we are offering our own children,” Lapid said.
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