Don't extend the Tal Law

Even if the Tal Law is not extended by five years, as the prime minister wishes, but by only one year, as the defense minister would have it, its very existence intensifies factionalism and weakens the unity ideal, as foreseen by Herzl and the rest of the state's visionaries and founders.

Despite his pretensions, Benjamin Netanyahu lacks historic perspective and responsibility. By extending the fiction called the Tal Law he is promoting tendencies of alienation, separation and privatization in a state established to be, among other things, a melting pot of exiles, communities and religious factions.

A large sector, which is growing at an unprecedented rate, has no duty or obligation and is completely supported and maintained by the dwindling few who bear the whole burden and all the obligations. Other groups, due to an absence of vision and responsibility, have become envious of this sector and are following its lead, both regarding military service (about half the recruit candidates dodge the draft ) and in making economic demands.

The ultra-Orthodox "deserve," so we have grown accustomed, an independent education system in which the state serves merely as an ATM with almost no say in the curriculum. When the content of the curriculum becomes sectoral, emphasizing the singular (that which separates ) rather than the unifying, it promotes radicalization - an affliction that part of the religious state education system has also contracted - among students and parents.

The Arab community has created a totally independent education system. Some of its curriculum is the same as the Palestinian Authority's, consisting of Nakba studies and hatred of Israel. Both are financed by the Jewish state, whose existence some of the ultra-Orthodox and Arab curricula deny.

The defense minister, who would settle for a year's extension of a law which the Haredim and other draft dodgers will clearly never uphold, is fleeing, as usual, from responsibility. Although he was once prime minister and head of an important Zionist party, Ehud Barak treats the issue of drafting Haredi men as a political matter with immediate and inconvenient political implications, rather than as an issue with major historic repercussions on the continued existence of the national "togetherness."

Although the ultra-Orthodox do not recognize the Zionist state, they would not like to see it destroyed - if only for utilitarian purposes. But their conduct and lifestyle weaken society, not only from the security and economic aspects. Considerable parts of the larger society see no way out of this situation. They fear what the future will bring and are even considering leaving Israel. The process will intensify as the Haredi community's demographic-political power increases.

Only the gradual recruitment of Haredi men to the army and their integration into the country's intellectual circles and productive life can allay the fear among significant parts of the secular public. The Haredi military unit and vocational training courses are to a large extent fiction, despite their public relations.

From this perspective, Yair Lapid's entry into political life could constitute a positive contribution. If he manages to create, together with Labor, Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu, a parliamentary bloc against Haredi separatism - as the absolute majority of the Israeli electorate desperately wants him to - he could usher in a historic turning point.

This bloc must not rant and rave and hate like Shinui did. It should form a resolved coalition that would no longer permit the ultra-Orthodox - and all those following in their footsteps, especially the Arabs - to maintain a state within a state, while Israel is feeding, funding and defending the Haredi state.

Read this article in Hebrew