On Wednesday, large convoys of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators from across the community took to the roads in protest against arrests of draft dodgers and financial sanctions on Torah students, causing heavy traffic and road blockages nationwide. The protest was led by Agudat Yisrael, and later joined by Degel HaTorah and Shas, following instructions from Rabbi Dov Landau and Rabbi Moshe Maya.
Opposition leaders quickly launched a sharp attack on the ultra-Orthodox leadership, their Knesset representatives, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Naftali Bennett, head of the Yamina-like "Together" party and a former prime minister, wrote on X that he had been stuck in traffic with his family for two and a half hours. He later told Kan Reshet Bet, "I am on my way to my daughter’s preparatory program graduation and stuck in traffic, because of privileged draft dodgers who decided to bury the state."
Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and former prime minister, blamed Netanyahu directly, saying the anti-IDF draft protest belongs to Netanyahu’s partners. He argued that instead of telling them, "Whoever does not enlist will not get a shekel from the state," Netanyahu gives them more public money while soldiers are killed daily in Lebanon, and said Israel needs a new, fair agreement in which everyone helps build the country.
Former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot said, "Netanyahu’s legacy, the non-working and non-serving public paralyzes the state and shuts down the working and serving sector." He added that the next government would act according to Israel’s national interests, not those of Aryeh Deri, Moshe Gafni and Yitzhak Goldknopf. Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman also accused Shas and United Torah Judaism figures of holding the ultra-Orthodox public hostage and said the people paying the price are those who serve, work and pay taxes.
