Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, which prides itself on combining Torah study and military service. Many of Smotrich’s constituents have served long periods of reserve duty during the current war. The IDF needs more manpower to relieve the burden on the rest of the army.
Still, even though the legal exemption of haredim (ultra-Orthodox) from IDF service ended in July 2023, the government, of which Smotrich is a senior partner, has dragged its feet in increasing the number of draftees from the largest remaining Jewish manpower pool – the haredi public.
Smotrich sat down with The Jerusalem Post for an interview on Wednesday (January 29) and discussed the matter at length. His views on the war in Gaza, the hostage deal, and other matters related to national security were laid out in a separate article.
He said that the fact that the haredim did not serve in the IDF was “painful,” but that as a public servant, he did not have the privilege to act based on that pain. The easy option would have been to leave the government over the haredi lack of participation; the more challenging but correct option was to take advantage of the current “historic opportunity” to create real change.
Change was possible now for two reasons, Smotrich said. The first was that in the past, the IDF did not need and did not want haredim in the army, but now there was a real need for manpower, and the IDF was showing that it was genuinely invested in drafting haredim.
The second was that post-October 7, the haredi public had begun to accept that they needed to join the national war effort. Haredim are increasingly “uncomfortable” with the fact that they are not contributing and are increasingly open to fundamental change.
A sign of this change is that the haredi parties may eventually vote in favor of a draft law if it is reached via dialogue with haredi political and spiritual leaders, Smotrich claimed. Haredi politicians adamantly opposed a bill proposed by the previous government in 2022 that required far fewer haredim to join the IDF than current proposals.
The fact that they are now willing to consider voting in favor of a bill that would draft a large number of haredim into the IDF and include “institutional and personal sanctions” against those who evaded the draft is unprecedented, Smotrich claimed.
He insisted that the only way the haredi draft could work was via dialogue with haredi leadership. This would take time, he admitted, as it was a significant change that could not be created from one moment to the next. The haredim did not have institutions that supported IDF service, such as the religious Zionist “Hesder” yeshivot.
For the haredi draft to work, there needed to be similar institutions, and these would take time to form, Smotrich said, adding that he supported “positive incentives” rather than negative ones. Rather than having haredim “not in the army and not receiving anything,” his goal was to succeed in bringing them into the army.
Just as the ultra-Orthodox should not receive collective exemptions from the army that others do not have, they should not be slapped with sanctions that others do not have, Smotrich argued. But the issue of haredi IDF service needed to be addressed on a deeper level, he said.
“We need to be honest with ourselves as a society and say that we are willing to accept the haredim as they are. It is easy to tell them, ‘Integrate,’ but with a sort of paternalism, [telling them] ‘we will show you the light and make you enlightened.’ Is the secular public really willing to respect the haredi public?” Smotrich asked.
The current answer was no, he said. For example, Israelis were only willing to enable segregated university studies for bachelor’s degrees, but not for advanced degrees, indicating that true respect for the haredi lifestyle would recognize their belief in segregated study.
Another example was that even if they join the army, haredim will not become Zionists – and should not be expected to, Smotrich said. They will view military service as a civic duty and nothing more. Religious Zionists should not expect haredim to become like them, and secular Israelis should not expect haredim to become secular.
The finance minister acknowledged that his evolutionary approach was not popular amongst part of his voter base, a large part of whom have been serving long periods of reserve duty. However, Smotrich claimed that since the war broke out, he has insisted on making correct decisions even if they were unpopular with his base.
He said that he should be judged by the results, and when the next elections come about – which he expected to happen on schedule, in October 2026, and not before – he was willing to pay the political price if the results were not there and his policy on the haredi draft did not work.
Smotrich contrasted his approach to that of Otzma Yehudit chairman MK Itamar Ben-Gvir. The two ran on a joint list in the last election but split into two separate parties after the election. In recent months, they have feuded publicly on several issues. One of them was the hostage deal – Ben-Gvir quit the government over the deal and criticized Smotrich for not doing the same. Smotrich said that while he spent long hours poring over the details of the deal and working to change it so that it did not contradict the war goals, Ben-Gvir held “press conferences” and spent his time doing public relations. The two were far apart in both their views and conduct, the RZP head said.
However, the two politicians’ names are often mentioned together, as representing the far-right wing of the government. According to Smotrich, this has been part of a strategy by the Left to demonize him, since it has not been able to counter his views with sound arguments.
He gave as an example the protests against the government’s controversial judicial reforms in 2023, which Smotrich strongly supported. He said that, rather than engage in dialogue, opponents took to the streets, warning against a “dictatorship” and putting on displays of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The 'National Camp alliance'
Smotrich added that the alliance between the traditional sides of the Likud, the haredim, and religious Zionists, which he called the “National Camp alliance,” was “correct.” He admitted that the haredim were not part of what political analysts have called the “Coalition of Servers,” i.e., the parties representing Israelis who serve in the IDF.
But people who served in the military and reserves or were part of the anti-Netanyahu camp were not political partners since they boycotted both the prime minister over his corruption trial and Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over what they claim is their extremism, he said.
Smotrich views 2025 and 2026 as a window of “historic opportunity” due to the new Trump administration.
He likely will not hurry to leave the government over the haredi draft issue and may end up showing an amount of flexibility that his voter base, many of whom have served in reserves for months since the war broke out, will find hard to swallow.