Former national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi on Friday sharply criticized Likud MK Boaz Bismuth’s proposed law to regulate ultra-Orthodox conscription, warning that the bill “enables evasion” and threatens Israel’s future.

The revised version of the bill, unveiled Thursday, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.

It is widely seen as calibrated to maintain the current status quo, under which the overwhelming majority of ultra-Orthodox men do not perform IDF service.

In a Facebook post, Hanegbi, a longtime confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Bismuth’s proposal “does not advance” the IDF’s urgent need for thousands of additional combat soldiers following the war.

He wrote that the military burden “still falls on the shoulders of a relatively small few,” noting that all four of his sons served in combat roles, with three recently fighting in Gaza.

He argued that while Torah study is a cherished value, “it must be combined with the value of defending the state and its citizens.”

The longtime Likud minister was

© The Times of Israel