Imagine, for a moment, that you are one of the thousands of IDF soldiers currently deployed deep inside Lebanon. You have left your family, your job, and your life and crossed the border into enemy territory, sleeping in abandoned buildings, some without running water, without the ability to shower, and without fresh food. Nights are cold. The ground is wet. Everything smells like mud and exhaustion.
And yet, you are there willingly because you know that you are needed. You know that just across the border, Israeli towns are under relentless rocket fire. You know that your mission, clearing villages, dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure, holding ground, is what stands between your family and the next attack.
You go because you understand something simple and fundamental: If you don’t go, no one else will.
So, you pick up your rifle, and you fight. But then, somewhere between operations, you get an update on the news back home. In Jerusalem, you read, the government has passed the annual budget, which is usually good news. But then, between the lines, you see that at the last minute, an additional NIS 800 million was allocated to ultra-Orthodox educational institutions.
You look around at your friends huddled in the Lebanese cold without understanding. How does this make sense? How can money go to a sector that is not there with you? To people who are not in the mud, not in the cold, and not under enemy fire? To people who did not have to leave their families, put their lives on hold, or cross into enemy territory.
Now imagine you are a pilot.
You are flying daily sorties to Iran – sometimes more than one mission. You are spending long hours in the air, under constant pressure, engaged in high-risk missions. You don’t remember the last time you slept properly. Still, you need to stay sharp since you are over hostile territory and know that if something goes wrong - a malfunction, a missile strike - you will eject alone, thousands of kilometers from home, with little chance of rescue.
And yet, you go. Because you know that Israel depends on you and that your missions are what allow millions of Israelis to step out of bomb shelters. You know that there is no one else.
But then you hear the news about the NIS 5 billion that the government approved on March 10 to fund additional ultra-Orthodox institutions – including NGOs whose sole purpose is to ensure that young men remain in yeshiva and do not enlist in the army.
What is the national priority?
How does this make sense? At a time like this, when schools across the country have been disrupted, when businesses are struggling, when reservists’ families are carrying enormous financial and emotional burdens – is this really the national priority?
Shouldn’t the money be directed toward those who are serving? Toward families who have lost income? Toward children who have lost more than a month of school? Toward strengthening the very society that is being asked to carry the weight of this war. Instead, it is being funneled into a system that perpetuates non-service and which avoids providing the basic tools: math, English, science, that are necessary for participation in a modern economy.
Tragically, this is the reality that we live with today in Israel.
Tens of thousands of reservists and soldiers are being asked to put their lives on the line so that the government can continue to pretend that the most important mission is for the coalition to survive, taking action that undermines the state’s very existence.
Yes, the coalition needs partners, and it needs their votes. And yes, in every government there is a trade-off between political necessity and the national interest, but not like this, not at a time when soldiers are being killed, and civilians are under fire. This is too much.
The fact is, though, that after two-and-a-half years of this government prioritizing itself over the needs of the country, there is an uncomfortable truth we – the sector that serves and works – need to come to terms with: We are to blame. We are to blame because we allow this to continue. We hear the news, we see the headlines, and we let it slide. We stay focused on our children who are fighting in Lebanon or on making sure that everyone gets to the bomb shelter when there is a siren.
Consider Kiryat Shmona. For years, the northern city has stood as a symbol of neglect. It does not have a hospital, and it barely has an emergency room. Schools are low in national rankings, and economic opportunity is limited. And now, after years of war, the city that has been largely emptied – from 24,000 residents before October 7 to roughly 16,000 today – is looking at an even greater exodus.
And yet, election after election, the majority of the city’s residents keep voting for the same parties – Likud, Shas, and the Religious Zionist Party.
These parties and their leaders – Benjamin Netanyahu, Aryeh Deri, and Bezalel Smotrich – make the same promises about a train that will be built to the city, a university, a hospital and more. Yet nothing ever happens, and the voting pattern remains the same.
At some point, a difficult question has to be asked: If nothing changes at the ballot box, why would anything change in reality?
This is not about blaming Kiryat Shmona. The state needs to do everything it can to protect and rebuild the city.
But we, the people, keep voting for the same officials who keep making the same promises without ever fulfilling them. If that is the case, why would the political system change?
Which is all to say that the change needs to come from us. We have to decide that we want a different reality. Sending billions of shekels to haredim who dodge the draft and do not participate in the workforce during a war is a slap in the face of the millions of people who carry the national burden. Making false promises again to the residents of Kiryat Shmona is not just insulting. It is shameful.
The IDF is already speaking openly about a deficit of 15,000 soldiers and the risk that the army could “collapse into itself” under the strain of expanding missions. Kiryat Shmona has already lost 8,000 residents. Do they need to lose more for the country to wake up?
At the same time, a rapidly growing segment of the population remains outside the system of service – both military and, in many cases, economically. And yet, instead of confronting this imbalance, the government is deepening it with more handouts and more exemptions.
The solution is not complicated. If you want to receive from the state, you must contribute to the state. Until that principle is enshrined, the gap will continue to widen between those who carry the burden and those who avoid it.
The writer is a co-founder of the MEAD policy forum, a senior fellow at JPPI, and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His latest book is While Israel Slept.