What weighed most on Bibi's mind wasn’t the fallout from his visits to Washington and Florida, but rather coalition maintenance

1

“We’ll get the job done without American boots on the ground” sums up Netanyahu’s message to Congress last week. The Israeli prime minister certainly wasn’t looking forward to getting his own boots back on the ground — not on the Gaza or Lebanon fronts, but in the ongoing civil war between members of the right-wing coalition.

Even from Wing of Zion’s communication room — the repurposed, decades-old plane’s most glamorous feature — Netanyahu was overseeing talks to start the Knesset’s summer recess the day of his return from America. What weighed most on his mind wasn’t the fallout from his visits to Washington and Florida, but rather coalition maintenance: the “rabbis’ law” submitted by Shas, the security forum Ben Gvir wants to join, and, of course, the draft law.

Shas chair Deri hasn’t dropped his veto on Ben Gvir entering a forum with decision-making powers on the war, while Defense Minister Gallant called Ben Gvir a “pyromaniac trying to set the Middle East ablaze,” after Ben Gvir, “as the political echelon,” announced that Jews can pray on the Temple Mount.

But it’s not only against Ben Gvir that Gallant is on the offensive. His directive to immediately issue draft orders to 3,000 chareidim, without consulting coalition partners and against the wishes of Yuli Edelstein, chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, shook the coalition’s foundations.

Even in Netanyahu’s absence, coalition members were on maneuvers, despite the Knesset’s imminent summer recess, which will provide the government with a temporary reprieve. Without traveling to Kibbutz Yad Mordechai on the Gaza frontier, where Benny Gantz moved last winter, Minister Meir Porush met the National Unity chair last week to try to reach agreements on the draft.

Another figure the Agudas Yisrael minister met was Ram Ben-Barak, former chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who lost the Yesh Atid leadership election to Yair Lapid by just 29 votes earlier this year.

It would be hard to exaggerate the significance of these meetings by a figure long seen as the rightist flank of United Torah Judaism. The message is clear: The chareidim must now put the good of the Torah world over any other political consideration.

2

You had to hear opposition leader Yair Lapid inveigh against the funding for chareidi summer day camps from the Knesset podium on the eve of the summer recess to understand that allying with the left would be to turn the other cheek.

Even Benny Gantz, who’s seen a Bidenesque collapse in the polls since leaving the government, would be a thin reed for the chareidim to lean on. As was recently said of Netanyahu in a different context, Gantz has “neither the ability nor the will.” He has no interest in antagonizing his left-wing base, and even if he did, he lacks the political power to deliver results.

Porush was and remains the most hawkish voice in United Torah Judaism, but his and other chareidi leaders’ meetings with opposition figures such as Gantz were a clear message to Netanyahu that the chareidim aren’t in his pocket.

The prevailing mood in the chareidi factions is pessimistic. In Porush’s assessment, the only way out of the crisis is the time-honored road trod by his Yerushalmi ancestors under the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate.

“We can’t help anyone who’s received a tzav rishon [first draft notice] with standard political tools,” one chareidi MK told me in the Knesset cafeteria. “It’s not pretty, but this is the reality. The only ones who can help someone trying to avoid the draft now are the askanim of the Eidah Hachareidis.”

This is a reference to obtaining an exemption on grounds of “insanity,” the definition of a method in madness.

3

“WE didn’t send a notice to a single bochur who learns in yeshivah full time,” a source in the defense establishment who’s involved in the process told me last week.

The Vaad Hayeshivos, the body responsible for the previous arrangements between yeshivos and the army, characterizes it slightly differently. Their analysis found that of the 1,200 bochurim who were sent notices, some 200 are yeshivah students who are on the record as having either received pay slips, owned a license to drive a truck, or been absent during Ministry of Religious Affairs inspections. Such criteria could easily have been crafted by a stringent mashgiach katan from an elite yeshivah.

Before the draft orders were issued, Israeli media reported that the Rebbes of Gur, Vizhnitz, and Belz instructed bochurim who received the orders to report to the draft office as usual.

“That’s not exactly the instruction that was given,” a source in the Gur court explained to me. “What was said was that we don’t make decisions based on conjecture, and as long as there’s no real change for the worse, and no yeshivah bochurim are called up, the old policy stands.”

The red line for the chareidim is not the sending of draft orders in and of itself, but actual harm to yeshivah bochurim. Even if the IDF’s database fails in some cases to distinguish between workers and learners, the big test will be in how the orders are enforced.

“Over a year has to pass between the [bochur’s] failure to report to the draft office to when they’re declared a deserter,” the defense establishment explains. “We sent the callup notices to comply with the High Court ruling, but we don’t intend to chase those who don’t report, and we’re counting on enough bochurim who aren’t learning to show up.”

Is the situation still reversible, and is there still room for reaching an arrangement? I asked Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur of Shas, who serves as secretary to Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah, the Sephardic Council of Torah Sages.

“In my view, yes, but it depends on the IDF,” he replied. “If they don’t enforce the orders and we pass a bill in the interim, there’s something to talk about. But if the law is applied rigorously, I don’t think the IDF and the Defense Ministry will achieve anything.”

Do you feel that Gallant is using us as a battering ram in his feud with Netanyahu? I asked.

“I strongly hope that we’re not the victim of the war between Gallant and Netanyahu, but I don’t see professional considerations here,” he replied. “I say that as a good friend of the defense minister, and I said that to him personally.”

As they say (and this could to applied to a few other current issues): G-d protect me from my friends….

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1022)