Israel’s politicians must “be worthy” of the soldiers fighting Hamas in Gaza, a senior Israel Defense Forces official declared in an off-script rebuke of the civilian leaders.
“You need to be worthy of the soldiers who lost their lives,” IDF Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus said during a press conference. “You need to be worthy of the reservists who don’t care what [political] side they are on and fought and fight alongside each other.”
Goldfus, who commands a division that has been fighting in the Gaza Strip, used a press conference Wednesday as an “opportunity to address our leaders, from both sides, and I hope that they will have the time to listen to the heart of a soldier.” He has been ordered to meet with IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi for a “clarification conversation,” but his unauthorized statement has been interpreted as a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an intervention into a debate about military service exemptions that could fracture the Israeli leader’s political coalition.
“Don’t worry, we, the people of the military, the commanders and troops, have taken, are taking, and will take responsibility for every action. We will not run, just as we don’t run from the fire. We will not run from responsibility,” Goldfus said. “But you, you need to be worthy of us.”
Those remarks made an implicit contrast with Netanyahu’s refusal to take blame for the security failures exposed during the Oct. 7 terrorist rampage that ignited the war. Netanyahu made a point to avoid accepting responsibility for the Hamas attack in the months after Oct. 7, even posting on social media that he never received a warning “about Hamas’ intending to go to war.”
Yet Goldfus also broadened his call for responsibility in a way that seemed to cover another hot-button political subject.
“Make sure that everyone takes part, you must,” he said.
That statement came on the heels of a renewed controversy over military exemptions for Israeli Haredim, a community of ultra-Orthodox Jews that has grown to about 13% of the Israeli population. Haredi Jews often study the Hebrew scriptures, known as the Torah, in lieu of military service.
“If they force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad,” Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said on Saturday. “All these secular people don’t understand that without kollels and yeshivas, the army would not be successful. … The soldiers only succeed thanks to those learning Torah.”
Israel’s Supreme Court ordered in 2017 that Israeli lawmakers end the Haredi exemption, but the coalition governments that have held power in subsequent years have not done so. The dispute is poised to intensify as IDF reservists feel the strain of the war with Hamas.
“As these people begin to rotate out of Gaza after four months of really hard fighting … [the idea that] Haredi, that they get a total pass from military service in one of the darkest hours in the country’s history — there’s going to be a lot of anger,” Jewish Institute for National Security of America senior fellow John Hannah told the Washington Examiner.
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The political path to ending the exemptions has been complicated by Netanyahu’s dependence on far-right Israeli politicians to achieve a governing majority. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for instance, has risen to power in part due to the support of Haredi voters.
“From my heart, I ask of you to be together, united, push away the extreme, and adopt the togetherness,” Goldfus said. “Find what unites. We on the battlefield found it, and we will not give up on it.”
