Hendel warns Israel could ‘fall apart’ as anti-Netanyahu bloc weighs draft compromise

Yoaz Hendel, whose party failed to cross the electoral threshold, accused the anti-Netanyahu bloc on Sunday of abandoning reservists by weighing a compromise with haredi parties on the draft.

Yoaz Hendel, whose party failed to cross the electoral threshold, slammed the possibility that the anti-Netanyahu bloc could reach a compromise with the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties on military conscription; he told 103FM radio on Sunday.

According to Hendel, the parties that promised to look out for those who serve are abandoning their principles, and he will keep up the fight from outside the Knesset.

On Friday, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman said his party was willing to “be flexible and compromise” on the haredi IDF draft law, as he laid out his conditions for joining a coalition led by Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot.

Hendel, who chairs the Reservists-Economic party, has been watching the news from outside the Knesset with dismay. He spoke with hosts Avishai Grinzaig and Barak Seri.

'If we don’t do this now, the State of Israel will fall apart'

“I told you I was afraid that if they had to get to 61 [seats, a Knesset majority], they would give up on the draft law. You told me, ‘Forget it, that’s not likely, it won’t happen,’” Hendel told Seri at the start of the interview. “I didn’t believe that an hour after the election, they would abandon the entire worldview I fought for over three years, and they were part of it. In the slogans on the buses, they talk about an alliance of those who serve and about conscription for everyone. I’m afraid that if we don’t do this now, the State of Israel will fall apart.”

“We have no governance in the Negev and the Galilee; we have an Arab sector that sings ‘Biladi, Biladi,’ and on the other side, shtetls that sing about ‘the rule of the heretics,’” he added, referring to an Arabic patriotic song.

“The disgrace has already happened. As far as public perception goes, it has all happened,” Hendel said. “The Change bloc [the anti-Netanyahu bloc], which claimed that the flag of those who serve was what mattered to it, has already given up. Now Netanyahu’s supporters come and say they’re all the same, and that’s true. We should have agreed in advance that whoever doesn’t serve gets nothing, regardless of whether you support Bibi [Netanyahu] or oppose Bibi.”

“Those who failed, and those who threw their vote in the trash, are the people who voted for a party that, an hour after the results were published, says the exact opposite,” the former minister said, when asked about his election failure. “[Avigdor] Liberman and the entire Change bloc [the anti-Netanyahu bloc] said they didn’t need us and that they would take care of the reservists.”

'My mission is not in the Knesset; it’s outside'

“For three years, I have been fighting to protect this country. 155,000 people voted for me, and that’s not enough to get into the current Knesset, but it’s enough to give this voice a platform,” he added. “Whoever dismisses it will have it come back at them.”

“Both the votes I brought in and the failure to cross the threshold are on me,” Hendel said later in the interview. “I won’t say ‘I told you so.’ My mission is not in the Knesset; it’s outside. It’s to fight so that the State of Israel doesn’t break apart into autonomous enclaves, because otherwise we will leave our children a country with a non-Zionist majority.”