Netanyahu Supports Ya’alon’s Chareidi Draft Bill

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netanyahu1Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu says that he does not plan on adopting the full new bill put together by MK Yochanan Plesner of Kadima for the drafting of chareidim into the Israel army. Netanyahu said over the weekend that he is more in line with the alternative bill formulated by Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon ‏of Likud‏.

In conversations with Likud ministers, Netanyahu, according to a Haaretz report, said: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We can go for a historic move regarding equality in bearing the burden, but we can’t resolve it all in one move.”

According to the Yaalon’s bill, chareidim could defer army service until age 26.

The bill produced by the Plesner Committee permitted deferment only until age 22. After that, a yeshiva bochur would have to choose between national civilian service and military service. According to the Plesner committee’s bill, the defense minister could exempt from Israel Defense Forces service “illu’im,” exceptionally bright students. How that status will be determined is not yet known.

Yaalon’s proposal states that the full draft of chareidim will be completed by 2016.

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}


2 COMMENTS

  1. How can the army expect any Charedi man to join the army at age 26 when most of us, unlike the chilonim who tend to waste their 20’s post-army on “spiritual” journeys in Peru and India, have added quite a few precious neshamos to Am Yisrael by then?

  2. #1:
    It would seem that that’s part of the gag.
    Netanyahu and Yaalon both know that, too. That’s why they pushed it to 26, knowing that by then, the overwhelming percentage of chareidi men will be married with enough children that they will maximum have to do 3 months of basic training and that’s it.

    The ones who have either not yet married or do not have the requisite number of children (I think it’s 3 but I’m not sure) and are still in full-time learning will probably not have too much trouble earning an “illui” classification.

    Netanyahu is not interested in a showdown with the chareidim, not least because he – as opposed to some others in his coalition – is not anti. On the other hand, he has to show the significant portion of the coalition and the population that he is attuned to them and not pandering to the chareidim. This sort of bill is a neat way out – say you’re drafting chareidim, don’t do it suddenly, do it in a way that most chareidim will realize that it has no effect on them anyway, and kick the rest of the can down the road for another four years. It’s too early to tell, of course, but that’s what it sounds like to me.

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