Jabotinsky would (on his better days) be proud of the Speaker.

Jew, Muslim, Christian, or Druze we move forward as a nation or we crumble under our own weight. MK Rivlin is a racist of the worst kind. They are covert and garb themselves in some reighteous cause. This gou needs to be recalled.

cruel and immoral. The secular G-dless and others who wish should serve. Leave haredim and arabs alone unless you want a civil war.

My Op-ed: Every able body (regardless of race, religion or geographical location) in Israel should join IDF www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4226289,00.html

Absolutely, Rivlin is definitely the last genuine liberal revisionist (with maybe other exceptions such as Benny Begin for example). The rest of Likud, with people such as Danon and Yakov Neeman, has become a right-wing populist movement that has very little to do with the liberal values of the ancient Herut.

Rivlin was stating the obvious. No one can serious expect that Israel will draft Arabs to the army. The army doesn't want it. Civil service is a completely legitimate demand of all sectors of society that should not be drafted to the army.

For G-d's sake, don't give them guns!

Rivlin is da man. rare feat from a politician. he Arab public can’t do it and the Jewish public doesn't really want it." Golden words. Arabs should not serve in JEWISH country. Only in free democratic country,less confusing then yours its ok for all to serve

driving an army truck (not to mention carrying M16,) then what do you call such segment of society? What are you supposed to do with it?! Why is it still a part of poulation? As for haredim: they're just a disgrace to human kind, themselves and obviously witness to our secular stupidity. Thank you comrade Ben Gurion!

Just as the Druze and Beduin serve, so too should the Arab and Haredi sections of the population. Israeli citizenship comes with a price. Those that do not serve do not deserve the priviledge and benefits of Israeli citizenship.

jew, that think arabs should be drafted should have a rethink do u want the arabs to turn their weapon against the state and the jewish people, when they drafed into the idf.

Right now the arabs & haredi are given the option to serve in the IDF or not. We certainly don't want hundreds of thousands of arabs flooding the IDF and so we must create a civil program for them. If only we had not rushed on the haredi draft issue and before we even started talking about the draft itself we created a civil program that would be an option for both haredi and arabs we would have avoided alot of the problems that trying to impose a military draft on the haredi. As long as they are doing something it shouldn't matter if its civil sevice or the military. Civil service for the haredi may even be preferable because the IDF don't want all the thousands of haredi and also civil service where there can do their bit for the day and then go home at night gets them out into the real world. Time for the government to create a civil draft which will be an option for haredi & arabs but both have to do that or the army. National service should mean everybody should do their bit but when we rush it so we can say problem solved we usually end up making a mess and creating a problem a future government has to sort out. Better to go slow and get it right first time.

There is no way to reconcile the rhetoric of "sharing the burden" and equality before the law if Arabs are excluded and only Hareidim are targeted. The Hareidim can legitimately say that this has nothing to do with any principle of law and is simply a slogan of the extreme seculars.

Or, alternatively, people like you finally accept that you are not god and that your word is not law and do your fecking duty like everybody else!

are already serving and have been serving and protecting the state long before its creation. The IDF worked fine without them, so there's no need for either of them in the army.

That is the first step towards creating a state within a state and if we can have an arab independent state directorate why not a hared one, why not a Druze one? That wold be the first step towards splintering the country and its not a path we should go down. We have elected national government and we have local government we do not need a special arab directorate. Lets stop looking for revolutions. We should have a form of civilian service for both arabs & haredi and lets not get anymore revolutionary than that, we have enough to handle already with the Palestinians, Arab Spring and Daphne Leef.

Alas the double standard of the totalitarian mind creeps up.

Continue to dream. Rivlin is an ethical, clear thinking individual. Arabs should not serve in the IDF but could serve in other capacities.

This means your native Palestinian neighbors in the West Bank (and Gaza) would be equal to you, a Jewish settler born in New York in 1967, with equal rights and responsibilities, including voting rights. Anything less is Apartheid, and you can't expect Palestinians to fight fellow Palestinians under Apartheid.

Create an official civilian national service program and then make it law that BOTH haredi and arabs serve. If the government is unwilling to draft the arabs then they have no right to draft the haredi. As things stand both have a legal right to refuse so if we are going to take the right to refuse from one we must take it from the other... no special exemptions.