Piron: Parasites will not be 'kosherized'
After PM instructs Defense Minister Ya'alon not to hinder draft reform, Yesh Atid's education minister assures party's threats to leave coalition were not idle
In an interview for Ynet on Tuesday, a day after his party threatened to leave the coalition over the draft reform dispute, Education Minister Shai Piron (Yesh Atid) sent a clear message to the haredi sector: "Parasites will not be 'kosherized'."
Piron made clear his party's threats were not mere political trickery and were only averted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intervention, who asked Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon to prevent the delay in the reform.
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The political brouhaha began after the Equal Share of the Burden Committee Chairman Yaakov Peri halted proceedings after Minister Ya'alon opposed the criminal sanctioning of draft evaders, suggested by the committee.
"There were no politics and no tricks," Piron said after Yesh Atid Chairman and Finance Minister Yair Lapid declared on Monday that "either the burden will be equally shared or the government will dissolve."
Minister Piron (Photo: Gil Yohanan)
Piron added that the haredi sector's evasion of the draft is a "historical rift and missing of an opportunity," and blamed the ruling Likud party and Ya'alon for trying to create an "outline without an outline."
"I want to believe that if the defense minister feels responsible for Israel's soldiers then what motivated him is some ideological stance which I fail to understand," Piron said.
"I don't want to conceive that due to some future manipulation the defense minister of the State of Israel did not stand by the soldiers and their mothers," he jibed. "I was glad when the PM took the reins and instructed the defense minister to promote the process."
Piron estimated that by the time the law will be brought before the Knesset, more attempts will be made to torpedo the process, but was assured that ultimately, the law will be passed.
"We'll pass this law not because we have good tacticians but because I think not one MK will be able to look his wife in the eyes when she sends their child to the army and say 'I was at this historical juncture and I missed the chance,'" he said.
Regarding the haredi sector's outcry against the proposed reform, Piron said: "Those who want to be Israeli citizens must share the burden and must carry the stretcher.
"All their populist statements such as that the Torah is being taken away are used to imprison a whole public which isn't suited to studying in a yeshiva all their lives just so their children and my children will not meet. These things are over and done with."
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