On the return trip from Gaza envelope communities, after visiting Kibbutz Kfar Aza and seeing the burned, silent “young neighborhood” and the remains left in ruined homes, the writer encountered an organized haredi road blockade. He noted that the demonstrators allowed cars to pass on the shoulder, but said it was clear this was a coordinated, institutional protest, not a rogue faction. A passenger remarked, “This is not the Jerusalem Faction, this is Agudat Yisrael.”
The column contrasts the devastation in Kfar Aza, where residents still described being abandoned, wounded people bleeding to death, children with post-traumatic stress, and reservists charging toward death, with the protesters on the road to Tel Aviv who were driving to defend their “right” not to serve and not to share the burden. The writer argues that road blockades are intolerable and that law enforcement has long been unusually tolerant of them, from all sides.
He says the ultra-Orthodox case is different because its leaders are not real opponents of the government, but part of the establishment and, in his words, “the crown of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule.” He cites meetings between Moshe Gafni and Yitzhak Goldknopf with Netanyahu, including a deal on a political inquiry committee, alongside their supporters blocking roads nationwide while the coalition transfers them billions through Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The column also points out that arrests of draft evaders are rare and random, and that the IDF has chosen not to send military police to pick up deserters at home. Meanwhile, Israelis have been serving for hundreds of days in the longest war, while the ultra-Orthodox do not promote national service or a haredi service track. The writer concludes by mocking the fact that those who effectively run the government are using road blockades against everyone else.
