‘Shame on You’: Bennett Recruit Slams Amit Segal Over Haredi Draft

Yonatan Shalev, a new recruit to Naftali Bennett’s party, responded Saturday to criticism after Channel 12 commentator Amit Segal pointed out that Shalev now opposes a draft outline he himself helped propose about a year ago.

The controversy began after Segal challenged Shalev over his shift on the Haredi draft issue, arguing that the plan he had previously promoted differs from the harder line now being advanced by Bennett’s camp.

Shalev responded on X, saying the original plan was drafted under different circumstances, before another year and a half of war and before the IDF’s manpower crisis became even sharper.

“For the facts corner,” Shalev wrote. “The service organizations’ plan was presented a year and a half ago to advance an immediate law that would bring the IDF more fighters and pass through the coalition of draft evaders. Back then, we still did not know how far they would go for political survival.”

He said the situation had changed dramatically since then.

“Since then, another year and a half of fighting has passed, and something has happened: the IDF clearly said it is short 15,000 fighters, and the chief of staff warned that the IDF is close to collapsing into itself,” Shalev wrote.

Shalev argued that the lesson of the past year is that the Haredi MKs are detached from the country’s urgent national security needs.

“We understood beyond any doubt that the Haredi MKs are disconnected from the existential national need,” he said. “Only if we turn the pyramid upside down, incentivize those who serve and ensure that whoever does not enlist does not receive a shekel, will we be able to secure our future in our land.”

At the end of his post, Shalev directly addressed Segal, accusing him of focusing on his position change rather than the government’s handling of the draft crisis.

“Amit, it’s a shame you don’t criticize with such enthusiasm the government that disregards the IDF, abandons its fighters and does not count its citizens,” he wrote.

The exchange came as Bennett sharpens his campaign message against any compromise draft exemption bill, trying to distinguish himself from rivals in the center and opposition who may be open to negotiations with Haredi parties after the election.