An earlier version of this Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.

In this column a week ago, I pleaded with the prime minister not to press ahead with his planned package of legislation to remake — or, rather, shatter — Israel’s democratic framework. I had issued a similar plea in March 2023. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t heed it then — barely half a year before the Hamas invasion — and he didn’t heed it now.

More to the point, then as now, he also ignored warnings from Israel’s defense establishment — led by then-defense minister Yoav Gallant and then-IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi — that the judicial overhaul legislation he was advancing was deepening the rifts in Israeli society and consequently weakening its deterrent capability in the face of enemies salivating at the prospect of destroying us. At one memorable low point, in July 2023, he refused to meet with IDF chief Herzi Halevi until the day after the so-called “reasonableness” law had passed. A very worried Halevi reportedly told Netanyahu that slanderous attacks on soldiers, especially reservists, who were protesting against the judicial overhaul were harming “the competence and cohesion of the IDF.”

This week’s dire warnings from the military leadership, in the final hours before Netanyahu pressed insistently ahead with legislation to unprecedentedly legitimize the ongoing mass exemption from IDF service of the entire ultra-Orthodox community, were not leaked to the media. They were, rather, set out, in unmistakably forthright terms, by the current IDF chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, in a letter delivered to Netanyahu, his empty shell of a defense minister, Israel Katz, and other senior officials.

“As you know, the change in law seeks to establish a special arrangement for yeshiva students according to which arrests, investigations, or enforcement measures will not be taken against them for a period of seven months, which is expected to be extended in light of the coming election period,” wrote Zamir on Monday. “The bill was introduced in the midst of a multifront campaign, and at a time when the IDF is facing a severe manpower shortage, which directly influences its ability to fulfil operational missions.”

As the IDF had repeatedly clarified to the Knesset committee formulating the law, Zamir went on, “not only is the bill not expected to bring additional personnel to military service in the short term, but rather the opposite — it will provide an incentive to not report for military service, as, due to it, there will be an exemption from prosecution and criminal proceedings. As such, the bill does not match IDF needs, and that is quite clear and unequivocal.”

To summarize that part of Zamir’s letter, he was telling the prime minister: You are about to pass a law that will harm the IDF’s capacity to defend Israel. Please don’t do........

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