TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- A heated public debate has emerged among Israeli occupied territories after chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef warned that members of the ultra-Orthodox community could leave if yeshiva students were required to serve in the military.
Speaking during his weekly sermon, Rabbi Yosef — the sephardic chief rabbi of Israel — said, “If yeshiva students are drafted into the Israeli army, we will all board planes and leave Israel.” 
His remarks, first reported by the Hebrew daily Maariv, sparked reactions across political and public circles.
Yair Maayan, mayor of the Arad region and a former director-general of the Water Authority, criticized the Rabbi’s comments on social media, writing: “Who dares to encourage and support those who don’t study in yeshivas to avoid military service? Rabbis who encourage draft evasion should be held accountable. Those who don’t study in yeshivas are deceiving everyone and walking around in the streets.”
The post drew significant online engagement, with responses ranging from support for Maayan’s position to calls for restraint and dialogue. One user commented, “It’s regrettable that public figures use such divisive language instead of encouraging respectful discussion. We can disagree without humiliation or harm.”
Israeli military analyst Avi Ashkenazi warned that the Zionist regime faces collapse not because of threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran, but due to the “growing hatred and folly” consuming Israeli society from within.
Writing in Maariv, Ashkenazi described the Likud party, once considered a liberal Zionist movement, as having transformed over recent years into a dark and extremist force, whose leaders deliberately seek to deepen internal divisions.
According to Ashkenazi, the current Israeli regime is “more consumed than ever by narrow political calculations,” led by individuals “completely lacking any sense of responsibility.” Some of these leaders have even announced their intention to participate in the massive Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) protests against compulsory military service.
The analyst called the participation of Likud members in such demonstrations “a blatant insult to the soldiers of the Israeli army,” adding that it shows the ruling party is willing, for fleeting political gain, to spit in the faces of its own military personnel. 
Ashkenazi warned that if the trends of hate-mongering, religious extremism, and social divisions continue, Israel’s internal collapse is more likely than any external threat.
Meanwhile, Maariv cited political analyst Mati Tukfeld as saying that the likelihood of Knesset dissolution and the fall of Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime is growing daily. The crisis over the controversial “military service law” within the coalition has reached a breaking point.
Tukfeld warned that if the law—which would cement exemptions for followers of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi stream from military service—fails to pass in its current form, Haredi rabbis may call for mass protests on Thursday and announce their withdrawal from the governing coalition, an act that would effectively collapse the regime and trigger early elections.
According to Maariv, Haredi party leaders and their Knesset representatives have admitted that control of the situation is slipping from their hands, as final decisions rest with rabbis who believe that a regime failing to defend the world of the Torah does not deserve to survive.
One Haredi leader told Maariv: “Until today, we tried to keep the

 government alive. But if the rabbis order a withdrawal, we will comply immediately. At that point, nothing remains but to declare the government dead.”
These developments occur amid an increasingly tense political climate in Israeli occupied territories. Analysts predict that as early elections approach, the electoral arena will be filled with extremist, inflammatory, and racist slogans, as politicians compete to satisfy a society increasingly leaning toward the far-right.
Ashkenazi’s analysis in Maariv highlights the depth of Israel’s internal crisis. The regime struggles in a self-created swamp of division and extremism, where leaders like Netanyahu exploit societal rifts to secure their political survival.
Built from the start on occupation and suppression, the regime now faces deep class, religious, and ideological divisions that not only destroy its artificial unity but rot its military from within, turning it into a tool for partisan games. By prioritizing personal gain and allying with dark and backward currents, Netanyahu has pushed the regime toward self-destruction, showing that the survival of this artificial entity will fall victim to the greed and corruption of its leaders.
The imminent fall of Netanyahu’s regime is a direct result of its pathological dependence on religious extremists who reject even military service and instead hold the state hostage. Rooted in racist and discriminatory policies, the crisis has paralyzed the Knesset and set the stage for elections rife with hatred and fascist rhetoric.
Netanyahu, emblematic of corruption and authoritarianism, has shown through desperate efforts to cling to power that the regime is incapable of reform, and its collapse from within is far more inevitable than any external resistance—a logical end to a colonial project that was doomed from its inception.