US-Israel talks have eased arms ‘bottlenecks' — Gallant; ultra-Orthodox conscription rattles political cage

Israel is facing a legal and political struggle over how many ultra-Orthodox men should be drafted into the military and how quickly, the result of a historic Supreme Court ruling.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that a war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would have “terrible consequences”, as the Biden administration struggles to avert a wider conflict in the Middle East.

US and Israel have eased ‘bottlenecks’ over munitions, says Gallant 

Israel’s defence minister said talks with top White House officials had eased “bottlenecks” in the supply of arms to Israeli forces, a sign that the two sides want to ease tensions fanned by accusations that the US was withholding weapons.

Yoav Gallant cited “significant progress” on the issues of “force build-up and munition supply,” according to a statement from his office released after he met with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington.

“Obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed,” he said in the statement without offering more detail.

It appeared to be a reference to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s accusation last week that the US was withholding weapons to Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. White House officials said they didn’t know what Netanyahu was referring to, though President Joe Biden had earlier held back a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs.

A White House readout of the meeting didn’t directly address the weapons dispute, but said Sullivan reaffirmed Biden’s commitment “to ensure that Israel has all it needs to defend itself militarily and confront its Iranian-backed adversaries.

“Mr. Sullivan reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, including in the face of threats from Iranian-backed terrorist groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah,” according to the statement.

Earlier: Netanyahu spars with White House over claim of weapons halt 

The spat over the flow of weapons highlighted just how strained relations have become between the US and its main ally in the Middle East as the civilian death toll mounts in the Gaza Strip and the US presses for more aid to be delivered to Palestinians.

The Biden administration has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s offensive to root out Hamas, the group designated a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and abducted more than 250 on 7 October. More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between deaths of civilians and militants.

The US is also worried that Israel may launch an offensive against Hezbollah militants across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon and spark a wider regional war.

Gallant touched on the possibility of fresh military action against Hezbollah, saying he and Sullivan had talked about “Israel’s commitment to ensuring the safe return of Israeli communities to their homes in the north by changing the security reality in the area”.

Court order to draft ultra-Orthodox Jewish men faces political maelstrom

Israel is facing a legal and political struggle over how many ultra-Orthodox men should be drafted into the military and how quickly, the result of a historic Supreme Court ruling.

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara said the army should take on 3,000 ultra-Orthodox recruits as soon as 1 July following the landmark decision on Tuesday, while laying out plans to recruit larger numbers in years to come. She also said the government must withhold funds previously allocated to religious seminaries whose students have been able to avoid the draft.

The court order to stop allowing the ultra-Orthodox, known as Haredim, to skip Israel’s system of mandatory military service is unpopular with the group yet has strong broader support. The exemption has stood since the early days of the state, and many Israelis say the burden of supplying forces to fight the ongoing war with Hamas and counter the threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon should be spread equally across society.

The decision has implications for Netanyahu’s ruling coalition government, which relies on two religious parties to function as a majority.

Read more: Israel court calls ultra-Orthodox men into army as crisis brews

There are 1,800 Haredi soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces already. The court said about 63,000 were available, and the country must act quickly to enforce the new ruling given Israel is at war.

Yet Yuli Edelstein, a legislator in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party who runs the committee where the conscription law will be debated, said he would not push through any Bill that doesn’t have broad support — meaning from the opposition as well as the coalition.

Netanyahu and his religious partners want to minimise the numbers and pace of recruitment to limit the political fallout. Moshe Maya, the spiritual leader of Shas, one of the two Haredi parties in the coalition, urged resistance to conscription, saying, “Anyone who joins the army today will become a sinner tomorrow.”

But many of Netanyahu’s fellow conservatives believe it’s vital for Haredim, who now number almost 14% of Israel’s 10 million population, to be integrated into the army especially as defence needs are growing. And rivals to Netanyahu, including within Likud, smell an opportunity to push for early elections.

In theory, the religious parties could leave the coalition and seek a better deal with other parties. Yet it seems more likely they will seek to minimise the ruling’s impact through internal negotiations.

The front pages of Israel’s two biggest newspapers, which lean centre-right, carried ads on Wednesday with words such as “Historic Day! One Nation-One Army. Let the Army Win!”

Haredi papers, by contrast, reported on the ruling as a tragedy, with at least one framing its article with black lines, mimicking a death announcement.

One of their biggest concerns is that subsidies for yeshiva — where students go for religious study — will now be cut off, and some Haredi leaders called for donations.

Austin warns that Israel-Hezbollah clash could spark new war

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that a war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would have “terrible consequences”, as the Biden administration struggles to avert a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Austin spoke on Tuesday at the Pentagon alongside Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who is visiting Washington this week. His remarks were intended as much for Israeli officials who threaten to open a new offensive against Hezbollah, which has fired barrages of rockets on northern Israel in recent days.

“Hezbollah’s provocations threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that they do not want, and such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon, and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians,” said Austin.

Such a conflict, he added, “could easily become a regional war with terrible consequences for the Middle East”.

Last week, the US diplomat Amos Hochstein made the latest of several trips to the Middle East to ease animosities between Israel and Hezbollah, which like Hamas in the Gaza Strip is considered a terrorist organisation by Washington.

Earlier: Israel to ease off Gaza fighting as focus moves to Hezbollah

On Monday Netanyahu said that some forces who had been involved in the campaign against Hamas in Gaza would be redeployed to the north, where Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and supporter of Hamas, poses a threat.

“If we can, we’ll do this by diplomatic means, if not it’ll be achieved in another way,” Netanyahu said.

Cross-border artillery and rocket fire began shortly after Israeli forces entered Gaza in the wake of the Hamas assault on Israel last October. Civilians in both Lebanon and northern Israel have had to leave their homes.

Germany cracks down on foreigners who glorify terrorist acts

Germany’s ruling coalition is seeking to crack down on foreigners who glorify the killing of Israeli civilians or similar acts of terror with updated legislation that would facilitate their expulsion from the country.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Cabinet approved the amendment to Germany’s deportation law at its regular meeting on Wednesday in Berlin. It’s part of a push to claw back the initiative in an increasingly heated debate over migration, an issue successfully exploited by the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

The updated rules would mean that even a single comment on social media deemed to be lauding terror can be enough to prompt deportation for people without a German passport.

“We are taking tough action against Islamist and antisemitic hate crime online,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in an emailed statement.

“Glorifying such acts not only lacks any humanity,” added Faeser, a member of Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats. “The brutalisation on the internet also fuels a climate of violence that can encourage extremists to commit new acts of violence.”

The move by Scholz’s ruling alliance of the SPD, the Greens and the Free Democrats is partly a reaction to a wave of hate posts on social media following the Hamas attack on Israel in October and a fatal knife attack on a police officer by an Afghan asylum seeker in May.

“The Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel were celebrated in the most disgusting way on social media,” Faeser said. “Just as inhumane is the way that the terrible Islamist knife attack in Mannheim, in which the young police officer Rouven Laur was killed, was glorified online.”

She urged the parliamentary groups of the three coalition parties to pass the amendment in the Bundestag lower house “as quickly as possible”.

The stricter rules were flagged by Scholz this month in a speech to parliament. He also outlined plans to enable the deportation of asylum seekers who commit crimes in Germany to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and war-torn Syria. DM

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