Ayelet Shaked participated today (Thursday) in the Rubinstein Center for Constitutional Challenges' annual conference, 'Democracy Under Fire', at Reichman University - and addressed the possibility of her returning to the political world in the next elections.
At the beginning of the interview, she was asked if and when she would return to political life - and she replied: "I don't know, there are no elections yet. I have good relations with Bennett, Lieberman and Saar. We know how to work well with each other, we also hold a similar ideological identity. There could be some kind of great connection, but there are no elections. I talk to everyone, everyone talks to everyone. We are all concerned about the situation in the country, the security, the economic, the political. The right thing is to have a broad unity government, with the central Zionist parties in the middle, without fringe parties. After the elections, the right and left camps should cooperate, there are things that 80% of the population agree on.".
On the recruitment of Haredi Jews, she said: "In 2014, I led the 'Shaked Committee' that drafted the recruitment law. I believed that Haredi society would go through some kind of process and that we should try, through dialogue and goals, to make this process happen and not to hinder it. After a decade, it turns out that it's not working, and we need to tell the truth. If you had asked me in 2014, I would have said that 6,000 would be recruited in a year, and today exactly the same amount is recruited, 1,500. It doesn't work, the process doesn't happen on its own.
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""Before October 7th, I thought the army would manage without them and that it was okay to give them an exemption, and after October 7th, the reality changed, the IDF needs them, needs to send out mobilization orders, certainly for 50% of them, the IDF needs to start establishing the Haredi brigade that they are talking about.".
""There is value for scholars who study Torah, but certainly not the entire class. If you ask the Haredi leadership in private, they also agree that 50% can enlist. One Haredi battalion replaces ten reserve battalions. At a time when there is such a great burden on the shoulders of the serving populations, we need to establish brigades, send orders, and establish Seder yeshivas.".
Following a question from the audience, the former minister said: "There are those who think that Netanyahu is in power because of me or by my merit. The Accused Law states that anyone who has an indictment against them will not receive the mandate to form a government. I do not believe that legislation can prevent an elected official, certainly one who is already in office, from leading a government. The way to change the government is through elections. This law, even if it were enacted, would not change the political reality. On the contrary, it would make the public, which already feels oppressed, feel even more so.".
