Israeli Army Draft Law: A Victory For Lapid?
New legislation mandating military service by ultra-Orthodox Jews gave Finance Minister Yair Lapid an opportunity to gain back his popularity.
The new bill ending exemption from military service for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, approved this week (May 29) by the Perry Committee, was supposed to have been one of the highlights of the new government, which for the first time in years is devoid of ultra-Orthodox representatives. It was supposed to have signaled a new, more egalitarian era in Israeli society. But there was nothing festive about the moment, which left a sour after-taste of political spins and power struggles within the government, in general, and within the ruling Likud party, in particular.
Political pundits rushed instinctively to crown the winners and losers of the coalition government’s first crisis, brought about by finance minister and Yesh Atid party chairman, Yair Lapid, on the road to approval of the military conscription reform. Lapid himself was crowned, rightly so, as the big winner of what is known as the “shared burden” law. He managed to block the downward spiral of his popularity, which kept plummeting in recent weeks with each new budget cut inflicted on Israel’s middle class.
The victory celebration he orchestrated at a news conference he convened once the crisis had passed, under the populist headline “My ultra-Orthodox Brothers,” obfuscated with great skill the inherent problem of the new law: postponement of the mandatory enlistment to the year 2016. Until that time, the ultra-Orthodox will enjoy a transition period during which they will be granted mass draft exemptions under the auspices of the new law. The same thing happened under the notorious Tal bill (the previous version of the law exempting the ultra-Orthodox from service, which was rejected last year by the Supreme Court). Not only that: The mandatory recruitment quotas for the ultra-Orthodox under the new law are even lower than those set by the Tal bill.
This is how Lapid managed to confuse us with pretty, snappy words about the history he was making. The bottom line is that it’s not at all certain we will live to see history being made. To quote a worn cliché, his words are written in ice, because even political novices know that four years is a long time in any political reality, especially in the third Netanyahu government where uncertainty is the only certainty.
