Winter says he’ll only join government if Haredi conscription law is passed first

Ofer Winter, the right-wing ex-general who last week entered the political arena, vowed on Wednesday that his new party will not join a coalition government unless a universal conscription law is passed first.

“We will not enter a government that does not pass, before its establishment, a law that puts an end to draft evasion and requires everyone to present themselves and contribute,” he said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.

“If that doesn’t happen, we won’t be in the government, and that’s that. Every young person of service age will present themselves to the state. No group is above the law,” he said.

The statement referred to ultra-Orthodox demands to enshrine blanket conscription exemptions long afforded to the community.

Winter said last week that his People of Israel party will only recommend Benjamin Netanyahu continuing as prime minister, a position he repeated in his speech. But Netanyahu’s Likud party governed for most of the past four years in a coalition with two ultra-Orthodox factions that staunchly oppose universal conscription. That coalition passed legislation designed to facilitate ongoing ultra-Orthodox exemption from service, and sought to pass a law explicitly maintaining this exclusion.

Winter reiterated in his speech that a conscription law must be passed before the government is sworn in, rather than “a promise [or] a clause in the coalition agreements.”

He added: “No one will bullshit us.”

Winter’s speech came as he was reportedly being courted by Netanyahu’s Likud party in an effort to prevent a solo run.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the premier is ready to offer Winter the five remaining reserved spots he has on the Likud slate for members of his party.

However, the People of Israel chair hasn’t received the proposal yet, since he refused to even speak with Netanyahu when approached by the premier’s associates, Kan reported.

“There is nothing to talk about,” he reportedly said.

Other reports have said Netanyahu has offered to reserve two spots on the Likud list for Winter’s party, in addition to two more spots on Religious Zionism party head Bezalel Smotrich’s new merged slate with Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut.

In his speech on Wednesday, Winter declared: “We don’t intend to surrender, we won’t fall, we won’t break apart, and we won’t let anyone drive a wedge between us.

“We won’t put two people here and two people there. We are not looking for a work arrangement, so get used to it — none of the members here came for a [Knesset] seat. I say this to the people of Israel, to all my friends on the right, and also to the prime minister,” he said.

Winter said he would not rule out merging with other parties, “but the partnerships will only be done with new and clean people” — meaning, people who weren’t sitting politicians during Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, and therefore haven’t been tainted by it.

Winter said that his declaration of support for Netanyahu was welcomed by supporters who did not want the new government to be made up of opposition leaders on the right who previously formed a coalition with leftist parties and the Islamist Ra’am party — namely B’Yachad party leader Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman.

However, he acknowledged some of his followers were disappointed.

“There were those who were hurt by my comments. They told me: ‘We were excited by your announcement; we were so excited that there is good news for the people of Israel, you promised something new, and then Netanyahu?’ First, I would like to apologize to those who were disappointed. We will always tell you the truth. We will not lie,” he said.

Winter launched People of Israel in Jerusalem last week, presenting it as a new right-wing party that would pursue a hawkish security policy while seeking to appeal across different sectors of Israeli society.

Netanyahu has been exerting pressure on smaller right-wing parties to unite to prevent votes from being lost should one or more of them fail to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold. Winter’s party is one of those at risk.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has refused to run his Otzma Yehudit party together with Smotrich’s Religious Zionism again, as has Winter.

Smotrich on Tuesday announced a joint run as a technical bloc with the Zehut party, led by Feiglin, and urged other right-wing parties to join him, warning that the achievements of the outgoing government are at stake if it loses the election.