MK Yael German (Yesh Atid) rejected Kandel’s proposal Saturday, saying
that it did not include a solution to the issue of equalizing the
burden. “The inequality still exists,” she said, going on to say that
the only change since the establishment of the state is that the number
of Haredim who do not share the burden equally has grown from 400 to
more than 60,000.
Ha'aretz reports:
…[Prof. Eugene Kandel’s] program [created for Prime Minister benjamin Netanyahu's Likud-Beiteinu party] calls for drafting more than 60 percent of ultra-Orthodox men up to the age of 24, while offering government incentives to these conscripts and the yeshivas from which they they were drafted. At the same time, the state would deny allowances to Haredi men who falsely claimed to be yeshiva students in order to receive government benefits and avoid army service.
Kandel, the head of the National Economic Council, rolled out the bullet points of his proposal on Israel’s “Meet the Press,” broadcast last night on Channel 2 television. Kandel dismissed the main points of Yesh Atid’s plan for drafting Haredim, which would include all but a few hundred ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, saying, “I suggest focusing on the Haredim who don’t study but who nevertheless receive government benefits and service exemptions.” Kandel added, “With 20 percent effort we could bring 70 percent of Haredi men into meaningful service in the Israel Defense Forces and into the labor market within five years.”
MK Yael German (Yesh Atid) rejected Kandel’s proposal Saturday, saying that it did not include a solution to the issue of equalizing the burden. “The inequality still exists,” she said, going on to say that the only change since the establishment of the state is that the number of Haredim who do not share the burden equally has grown from 400 to more than 60,000.…
Meanwhile, Likud figures close to the party’s coalition negotiation team attacked Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett on Saturday.
“Throughout the campaign season, Bennett promised his voters a government comprising the nationalist camp and headed by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” a source said. “He also put up billboards with pictures of him and Netanyahu together, to illustrate their cooperation. But since the election Bennett is doing all he can to prevent the formation of a government consisting of the nationalist camp, to which he had committed himself. He forged an alliance with [Yesh Atid chairman] Yair Lapid that rejects the Haredim. With the Haredim it will be impossible to create the kind of government [Bennett] himself promised.”…