Eizenkot to Netanyahu: "Stop Before You Bring Destruction"

Former IDF chief of staff and Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot has issued a stark warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, urging them to halt the coalition’s proposed legislation regulating ultra-Orthodox military service.

In a detailed letter sent this week, Eisenkot wrote that the bill’s purpose “is not to strengthen the IDF,” accusing the government of pushing it through “at any cost.” He called the legislation “dangerous for the security of the State of Israel” and charged that it “dismantles the framework of the people’s army,” the foundational model on which the IDF operates.

Eisenkot, who served as an observer in Netanyahu’s now-dissolved war cabinet, said his warning is a “serious strategic alert for Israel’s security and the values of Israeli society, similar to the one I sent you in August 2023, almost two months before the failure of October 7.”

In that 2023 letter, Eisenkot cautioned the prime minister that the judicial overhaul and the reservist protest movement against it were eroding the IDF’s readiness.

This time, his criticism is even sharper. Appearing before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this week, Eisenkot said he left “with a difficult feeling” that the bill’s objective was political rather than military.

“The conscription law currently under discussion harms the IDF’s exclusive mission: defending the State of Israel, ensuring its existence, and victory in war,” he wrote. “We cannot correct a historical mistake with another historical mistake, one that may prove irreversible and become a source of grief for generations.”

He argued that the legislation will not provide the IDF with the manpower it needs, “certainly not during wartime,” and does nothing to address the army’s actual requirements.

Eisenkot emphasized that active-duty soldiers and reservists “who have carried the burden of security, especially over the last two years, cannot carry it alone. It is neither militarily feasible nor legally, morally, or socially acceptable.”

Calling the bill a hok she’dagel shachor mitnosess me’alav — a law over which a “black flag” hangs — Eisenkot urged Netanyahu to intervene.

“I call on you personally: stop before destruction,” he wrote. “Bring to the Knesset a law that drafts everyone: military, national, or civilian service; returns authority for exemptions from the rabbis to the state; rewards service; punishes draft evasion; and allows a deferral of up to 3 percent per cohort for yeshiva students. This is possible, and it is the right thing to do.”

The coalition is expected to continue advancing the bill in committee despite Eisenkot’s objections, setting up another clash over one of the most combustible issues in Israeli politics.