Yoaz Hendel: Those who refuse to serve should lose the right to vote

Former Israeli minister Yoaz Hendel has declared that Israelis who do not serve in the army or national service should lose the right to vote or to stand for the Knesset.

He linked his position directly to his experiences during and after 7 October 2023. Addressing the Zionist Federation of Australia plenary in Sydney on Sunday, 14 September, Hendel recounted that his active service in the IDF had ended several years earlier, after rising to the rank of company commander in Shayetet 13, Israel’s naval commando unit. After leaving politics in September 2022, he offered to return to the reserves but was told he was too old for front-line command.

On the morning of 7 October, Hendel was at home near Jerusalem when he heard explosions from the south. He switched on his phone and began calling his old unit. “No one called me, but it was an emergency. “I had to go,” he recalled. Within hours he drove south, signed out a weapon and joined a special forces unit he had helped establish.

For the next 140 days, Hendel fought in Gaza. At first, he helped recover bodies around Kibbutz Be’eri under sniper fire, later leading an improvised force of more than 200 veteran reservists on missions to locate Hamas tunnels and infrastructure. In 2024, this group was formalised as Battalion 8555 under his command.

Hendel said the experience showed that when political leaders failed on 7 October, ordinary Israelis rose to the challenge. “People raised up from nothing,” he said.

He described meeting students who cleared fields in Be’eri, elderly mechanics in their seventies repairing tanks, and women delivering food and water to soldiers at the entrance to Gaza. “This act actually saved the State of Israel.”

The price was heavy. Hendel spoke of comrades killed and wounded, including a friend who fell into a coma and a newlywed soldier who returned from his honeymoon to fight and was killed hours before leaving Gaza. “Every reservist, every soldier still fighting in Gaza has this experience and this deep feeling that he is doing the right thing, but at the same time there is a heavy price,” he said.

Hendel said the long-standing exemption for the ultra-Orthodox could no longer be tolerated. “I cannot accept it. Everyone must share the burden,” he said.

He also argued that the core of Zionism is protecting the Jewish state so that children in Kibbutz Be’eri or on the northern border can sleep safely. He pointed to rebuilt fields in Be’eri as a symbol of resilience and hope.

Hendel confirmed he has launched a new political movement, the Reservists party, to push for “Zionistic coalitions” that will make difficult decisions. “Before, politics was treated as a game,” he said. “But politics in Israel is about life and death. This traumatic period should force us to take decisions. We cannot go back to politics as usual.”

On Israel’s image abroad, Hendel said public diplomacy remains important, especially with young Jews in the United States, but insisted that security comes first. “The important thing is to make sure that kids in Kibbutz Be’eri are safe… before CNN, before the criticism,” he said.

The events of October 7 and beyond, he told delegates, reinforced his conviction that service must be the foundation of Israeli democracy. “It’s impossible that someone will take a decision on how me and my boys will risk their lives, and he will not serve,” he said. “From my point of view, an Israeli citizen that is not serving in national service, or in the military, should not have the right to vote or to be elected to the Knesset.”