Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu delivered an impassioned speech Monday night in the Knesset, forcefully defending the centrality of the Torah world to Jewish survival while trading sharp barbs with opposition leader Yair Lapid during a heated 40-signature debate.
Speaking after Lapid renewed his attacks, Netanyahu chose to respond directly, combining pointed political criticism with an emotional defense of Torah study. Addressing the draft law, Netanyahu accused the opposition of taking what he called a “narrow, extreme, and divisive” stance, while his government, he said, is pursuing broad national consensus.
“We are advancing a historic framework that will lead to the enlistment of 23,000 chareidim over the next three and a half years,” Netanyahu said. “This is a real revolution, with an enormous number of recruits. The law we formulated includes personal and institutional sanctions, but I believe they won’t be needed, because the chareidi public will meet the enlistment targets we set.”
The prime minister went on to contrast the government’s proposal with what he described as Lapid’s previous legislation. “We quadrupled the number of recruits. Which law is better, your draft-evasion law or our enlistment law? Our law serves the state; your law serves you politically. You’re not interested in chareidi enlistment. You want to throw obstacles in the way of the historic law we are bringing. Your fear is that we will succeed — that the draft law will pass and tens of thousands of chareidim will enlist in the IDF.”
Lapid responded by citing the pain of bereaved families, describing testimony given in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee by the widow of fallen IDF officer Emanuel Moreno. “Bereaved families are falling apart when they see attempts to give chareidim exemption from sacrifice,” Lapid said, accusing the government of moral failure. He further claimed that a senior chareidi minister compared calls for chareidi enlistment to forcing Jews to wear a yellow badge.
After Lapid’s remarks, Netanyahu returned to the podium for a second speech, rejecting the opposition’s claims and reaffirming his support for both national security and Torah learning. “We are now passing a real draft law, as opposed to your evasion law,” he said. “I stand behind everything I said about what is in our law and what was not in yours. I understand that there are people who are unhappy about this. You certainly are, because you want it to fail.”
Netanyahu strongly condemned the comparison to the yellow badge. “I denounce with complete force the talk about the yellow patch,” he said. “Enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces is not a yellow patch. It is good that hundreds of young chareidim came yesterday. But at the same time, we will preserve the Torah world, because without the Torah world we would not have survived here and we would not have reached where we are today.”
In one of the most emotional moments of the debate, Netanyahu linked Jewish continuity throughout history to Torah study. “We would not have endured, we would not have reached this time, and we would have no future without it,” he said. “If you follow Jewish history — exile after exile, slaughter, plunder, horrific acts — throughout all of that, Torah learning and the preservation of Jewish heritage remained. Without it, we would not be here. I respect this. I do not scorn it, and I am not trying to eliminate it. I want coexistence: there will be Torah scholars, and there will also be those who enlist. Thank God this is beginning to happen, and soon it will happen on a much larger scale. If you care about the future of the state, this is something you should encourage.”
Netanyahu concluded with a sharp personal jab at Lapid, tying the opposition leader’s political standing to his priorities. “You know why you’re polling at four seats today,” Netanyahu said. “A year and a half ago you told me there wouldn’t be a fountain named after me, there wouldn’t be a square named after me. Do you really think that’s what interests me? I’m here to ensure the existence of the Jewish people. That’s what interests me, not you. And that’s why the polls give you four mandates.”
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Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid sharply escalated his rhetoric on Monday against the chareidi public and its rabbinic leadership, accusing them of delegitimizing the Israel Defense Forces and demanding what he described as unequal treatment in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
Speaking at the opening of a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid party, Lapid addressed the ongoing controversy surrounding remarks made by Yitzchok Goldknopf, chairman of United Torah Judaism, as well as statements by chareidi rabbinic figures opposing military conscription. Lapid claimed that chareidi leaders are “not asking for an exemption from army service, but for an exemption from bereavement.”
Lapid said Goldknopf appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee a day earlier and compared sanctions on draft evaders and deserters to the yellow badge imposed on Jews during the Holocaust. “My father wore a yellow badge,” Lapid said. “A 13-year-old Jewish boy sitting in the Budapest ghetto while the Nazis wanted to kill him. My grandfather was murdered in the cold and snow in a concentration camp. My grandfather never harmed a single person in his life. He was a small, overweight man, not important at all. They put a yellow badge on him and murdered him because he was a Jew.”
He went on to cite a gathering of roshei yeshiva that took place the same day, where Rav Menachem Tzvi Berlin reportedly said that the Israel Defense Forces and those who support enlistment were “no better than Hitler.” Lapid said no senior rabbinic figures present objected to the comparison. “Hitler murdered a million and a half Jewish children,” Lapid said. “And he stood there and compared him to the IDF, and no one stood up and said, ‘Sir, Jews do not speak this way.’”
Lapid delivered some of his harshest words directly at the chareidi leadership. “How dare you?” he said. “How dare you compare the Israel Defense Forces to the Nazis? If there were no IDF, we would all have been dead long ago like my grandfather. What kind of Judaism is this? What happened to ‘Its ways are ways of pleasantness’? Since when do Jews speak to one another like this?”
Addressing the broader national burden of military service, Lapid said, “At some point you’ll have to understand: we’re not trying to fight with you, we’re trying to live with you. But it’s impossible to continue when our children are dying and yours are not.” He added, “You’re not asking for an exemption from enlistment. You’re asking for an exemption from bereavement. You’re asking for an exemption from the knock on the door at four in the morning. We can’t give you that anymore. Not after October 7.”
Lapid also focused on the economic dimension of the dispute, claiming that draft evasion imposes a massive financial burden on the public. “We also can’t continue with a situation where we fund draft evasion to the tune of 60 billion shekels every year,” he said. “Every working family transfers 1,700 shekels a month to draft evaders.”
Concluding his remarks, Lapid said his party was offering an alternative vision. “What we’re proposing instead is shared lives and a shared Israeli story,” he said. “We have no problem with you being chareidi. That is your full right. But it does not exempt you from the obligations that apply to every Israeli citizen — to serve, to study, and to work. It does not exempt you from sharing the fate of this people. And stop talking about the Holocaust. It does you no honor, it does not honor the Torah, it cheapens the Holocaust, and it gives ammunition to antisemites against the Jewish people.”
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Israeli officials are increasingly wary that Tehran could misread Israel’s intentions and act first, even if Israel has no plans to strike. In recent days, Israel’s political and security leadership has convened a series of consultations focused on regional threats, with particular attention to Iran, Kan 11 News reported.
As part of efforts to lower the temperature, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin to pass messages to Iran stressing that Israel is not seeking an attack, according to the report, which cited diplomatic sources. The messages were said to have reached Tehran recently, including through direct phone conversations between Netanyahu and Putin, amid heightened tensions between the two countries.
Speaking Monday during a session of the Knesset, Netanyahu said Israel had already made its position clear to Tehran, warning that any aggression would be met forcefully. “If we are attacked, the consequences will be severe,” he said.
During the same session, Netanyahu also addressed Iran’s strategic capabilities, declaring, “[US President Donald] Trump and I will not allow Iran to restore its ballistic missile industry and nuclear program.”
He went on to add, “We identify with the struggle of the Iranian people. We may be standing at a crucial moment. If we are attacked, the consequences for Iran will be very serious.”
Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported Sunday that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had begun a wide-ranging military drill that included missile launches and air defense system tests. The exercise was said to be taking place in multiple locations across the country, including Tehran and Shiraz.
Concerns about the drills were echoed earlier this month in Western and Israeli reporting. Two weeks ago, Axios correspondent Barak Ravid reported that Israeli officials had cautioned the Trump administration that an IRGC missile exercise could be a precursor to an attack on Israel.
One day before that, Iran International cited Western intelligence sources who said they had detected “unusual aerial activity” by the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, adding to regional unease over Iran’s military posture.
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Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said that he sees the U.S. mission that led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as a success, openly criticizing fellow Democrats for attacking President Donald Trump over the operation.
Appearing on Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Fetterman expressed frustration that Democrats who long demanded Maduro’s removal are now condemning the Trump administration after the goal was achieved.
“I don’t know why we can’t just acknowledge it’s been a good thing what’s happened. I’ve seen the speeches from, whether it’s Leader Schumer or kinds of past tweets from President Biden,” he said, referencing recent remarks by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and earlier statements from Joe Biden when he was out of office.
“We all wanted this man gone, and now he is gone. I think we should really appreciate exactly what happened here,” Fetterman added.
Schumer, however, warned over the weekend that “launching military action without congressional authorization and without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless.”
The criticism echoed earlier attacks from Biden, who in 2020 accused Trump of posturing on Venezuela while praising strongmen abroad. In a social media post that year, Biden charged that Trump talked “tough” on the country but admired “thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro.”
Those past remarks, Fetterman said, only highlight the inconsistency in the current Democratic response. He questioned why the party refuses to acknowledge what he views as a clear achievement.
“I salute our military, what they’ve done,” he said on Fox News. “That was really surgical and precise and very efficient — so why we can’t celebrate these kinds of things?
Fetterman also said Maduro’s removal could mark a turning point for Venezuela itself.
“And now I’m open to the good opportunities, a better future for Venezuela after this happened,” he said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio reinforced that argument during a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, noting that the U.S. government itself had previously placed a multimillion-dollar bounty on Maduro’s capture.
“In the Biden administration, they had a $25 million reward for [Maduro’s] capture,” Rubio told NBC host Kristen Welker.
“So, we have a reward for his capture, but we’re not going to enforce it?” he asked.
Rubio also responded to complaints that Congress was not notified ahead of the mission. He said secrecy was essential because the operation depended on specific conditions and any leak could have put it at risk.
“We called members of Congress immediately after. This was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on,” Rubio told reporters during a press conference in Palm Beach, Florida.
“It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met. Night after night, we watched and monitored that for a number of days. So it’s just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, ‘Hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days,’” he said.
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