The alliance that brought together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Haredi parties for years entered a new phase of rifts, after statements attributed to Rabbi Dov Landau, the spiritual leader of the Lithuanian Haredi movement, sparked a public confrontation with Netanyahu over his recruitment and service in the Israeli army.
According to a report by journalist Anna Barsky in the Maariv newspaper, on Monday, Netanyahu strongly condemned Rabbi Landow’s statements against elements in the religious Zionist movement that support service in the Israeli army and the recruitment of religious institute students.
Netanyahu said in his first comment on the storm that broke out after the statements were published yesterday evening: “I strongly reject the shocking statements made against Israeli army soldiers who are members of religious Zionism.”
He added: “Israeli army soldiers, religious, secular, and ultra-Orthodox, leave their homes, jobs, and families, and put their lives at risk in order to defend the State of Israel, its citizens, and the entire people of Israel.”
He continued: “They deserve deep appreciation, gratitude and full support from all segments of the public, and certainly also from the Torah world.”
Netanyahu’s response gave the intellectual confrontation between the Lithuanian Haredi leadership and religious Zionism a clear political dimension, as the prime minister came out against the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party, who in recent months led the escalation of the Haredi confrontation with Netanyahu over the conscription law.
Rabbi Lando had directed the party’s representatives to work on dissolving the Knesset, after he decided that he no longer trusted Netanyahu, and that the concept of the political “bloc” was no longer binding on him.
In light of this background, caution appeared evident in the wording of Netanyahu’s statement, as he explicitly defended the soldiers of religious Zionism and strongly rejected the rabbi’s statements, but he refrained from attacking the entire ultra-Orthodox community, asking Rabbi Landau to apologize, or directing direct criticism at the Degel HaTorah party.
Netanyahu also made sure to mention the Haredi soldiers alongside the religious and secularists, while his concluding statement, in which he stressed that the soldiers deserve support “certainly also from the world of the Torah,” carried a direct message to the Haredi religious leadership, to the effect that the statements crossed, from his point of view, general and moral limits.
The storm began after the publication of a recording of a meeting between Rabbi Lando and the head of the “Mir” Religious Institute, Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, and the religious supervisor at the institute, Rabbi Benjamin Finkel.
Institute officials had visited Rabbi Lando’s home to thank him for his trip to the United States to collect donations for religious institutes, in light of the reduction in their budgets and the escalation of the battle over the status of their students.
During the conversation, Rabbi Landau explained that he set out on his journey to ensure that yeshivas “have something to pay for.”
But the discussion about funding difficulties and the “harsh decisions” imposed on the Torah world turned into a sharp attack on parts of religious Zionism.
Rabbi Lando said that there are also “bad guys” among those who wear knit hats, before clarifying his point by saying: “I am talking about the people who have knit hats who force people to go,” referring to supporters of forcing yeshiva students to enlist.
He later added: “If the state sends people, soldiers, for the sake of the state’s dignity, and they kill people, is this also allowed? It’s real murder. So they incite murder, that’s what they do. They fight wars not only for salvation, but for the dignity of the state.”
Rabbi Landau did not specify the war, front, or political decision he was referring to, nor did he mention the names of rabbis, politicians, or entities affiliated with religious Zionism.
Thus, there is no basis for saying that he described all of Israel’s wars as killings, or that he considered every soldier in the Israeli army a murderer.
However, his statements did not remain within the bounds of the specific dispute over the conscription law, as he questioned the moral legitimacy of military operations that, according to his view, are not intended to immediately save a life, and he held those who encourage military service morally responsible for actions that he described as “real murder.”
Rabbi Landau’s statements were interpreted in two ways. Some considered them a direct attack on the soldiers of religious Zionism, while others stressed that he mainly meant supporters of imposing conscription.
However, the full text of his statements showed that he attacked parties within religious Zionism that encourage service or work to oblige others to do so. However, his position also affected the legitimacy that religious Zionism grants to service in the Israeli army and to Israeli wars.
The head of the Yisrael Beytenu party, Avigdor Lieberman, was one of the first to respond to the statements, describing them as “terrible.”
Lieberman said that Rabbi Lando describes the sons of religious Zionism, “who shed their blood in a war of existence,” as inciters of murder.
Lieberman linked his condemnation of the rabbi to criticism of the government, calling on Netanyahu and those around him to disavow those statements.
The timing of the case bears special importance, as Rabbi Landau’s statements were published while the issue of recruiting yeshiva students stands at the heart of an intense political confrontation between the Haredi parties and Netanyahu.
For Lithuania’s ultra-Orthodox leadership, the dispute is not limited to the wording of the law’s provisions, targeted recruitment numbers, or penalties, but rather revolves around whether the state will allow the world of yeshivas to continue without requiring its students to serve in the military.
During recent months, Rabbi Lando expressed his loss of personal and political confidence in Netanyahu.
After repeated postponements in paying the settlement related to conscription, he instructed the members of the Knesset in “Degel HaTorah” to work on dissolving the Knesset, and announced that the automatic alliance with the right-wing bloc no longer existed for him.
During a meeting with party members, Netanyahu tried to convince Degel HaTorah Chairman Moshe Gaffney not to proceed with dissolving the Knesset, but Rabbi Landau rejected the Prime Minister’s promises and said that he did not believe him.
Netanyahu is now required to maneuver between two main pressure centers.
Remaining silent regarding Rabbi Landau’s statements could have been interpreted as an abandonment of the mass of fighters from the national religious movement, which constitutes an essential part of the support base of the right-wing bloc, and bears a large share of the burdens of combat and reserve service.
On the other hand, an excessively personal and hostile response to the rabbi would have increased the rift with Degel HaTorah and harmed the chances of rebuilding relations in the future with the Haredi parties.
Therefore, Netanyahu chose a path that combined a firm defense of the soldiers and a clear condemnation of the statements, while avoiding expanding the confrontation to include the entire Lithuanian leadership.
However, the fact that the Prime Minister was forced to stand publicly in the face of Rabbi Landau reflects the depth of the erosion that has afflicted the alliance that, for years, linked the Likud Party to the Haredi parties.
So far, no official clarification has been issued by Rabbi Lando, nor has the Degel HaTorah party or the Mir Institute officials who attended the meeting published any public position disavowing the statements.
But the Degel HaTorah party responded to Netanyahu’s words with a sharp statement in which it said: “The words of the elders of the Torah are the most holy of the people of Israel, and from their mouths we live.” Whoever does not live in the world of the Torah and does not understand the depth of its words, it is better for him not to rush to interpret it, and certainly not to attack it. Beware of their embers.”
At the end of the week, Maariv newspaper analyst Matti Tochfeld discussed the strategic position of the Haredi parties in the upcoming elections.
Tochfeld wrote, in the context of discussing the law to abolish the detention of those evading military service, that “in the climate of arrests, protests, and the general feeling of disappointment among the ultra-Orthodox public with its representatives, there was no chance for the Shas party to repeat its achievements, or for the United Torah Judaism Party to obtain the eighth seat that it was supposed to obtain according to natural demographic growth.”
He added: “This means defeat.” Without these Haredi seats, the right will certainly not have a majority.”
He continued, “The biggest difficulty that Aryeh Deri will have to deal with came specifically from the sister party, United Torah Judaism.”
He explained, “Agodat Israel has been in the opposition for a long time, and is moving toward possible cooperation with Gadi Eisenkot, while HaTorah Degel has stood by his side until now in everything related to recruitment, but he withdrew at the last minute.”
Tochfeld added: “Rabbi Dov Landau’s message, in which he stressed that there is no bloc and no confidence in Netanyahu, put him in front of a real dilemma.”
He continued: “His voters are not Digel HaTorah voters. They are all right-wing, much more right-wing than he is. If he shows them, or even just hints, that there is an option to form a government with the left, half of them may flee from it to Likud, or mainly to Ben Gvir.”
Thus, the recruitment crisis is no longer a limited legislative dispute within the right-wing camp, but rather threatens the political structure that Netanyahu has relied on for years, after the relationship between him and the Haredi leadership transformed from an automatic alliance to an open confrontation over trust, power, and the future of the majority.
