Avi Shoshan, a panelist on the Israeli "channel 14" program "The Patriots", delivered sharp criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of military service equality and his coalition partnership with ultra-Orthodox parties during an interview on Yossi Marshak's "Lech Chapes"(Get Lost in isaeli slang) podcast on All In.
Shoshan, a prominent voice on the Israeli right, launched an unusually harsh attack on "Shas" party chairman Aryeh Deri and "Yahadut H'atora" ultra-orthodox party chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf. He predicted surprising election results that may not favor Likud at all.
According to Shoshan, he conveyed a direct warning to Netanyahu: "I told Netanyahu as clearly as possible: this blind alliance with the Haredim, and the handling of core issues and equality in burden-sharing, will ultimately cost him power. The Israeli public, including a large portion of the right's traditional support base, is no longer willing to remain silent about these priorities. On the next election day, the political price for inaction on this issue will be unbearable, and the bill will come".
Shoshan suggested the upcoming elections could produce unexpected outcomes: "I think these elections will be very surprising. Not necessarily in favor of Likud and not necessarily in favor of the Haredim. The alliance with the Haredim, as I told Netanyahu, brought him a full government, but it won't bring him the next term. The public isn't willing to bear this, and the public means Kaplan and Balfour, religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. What's common to every Israeli is that they serve in the army. The only ones who don't enlist in the army are the Haredim. And the public in the end, whether you're right-wing or left-wing, whether you live in the center or the periphery, whether you're Mizrahi or Ashkenazi, isn't willing to accept this inequality in burden-sharing".
