New Military Draft Bill Includes Chareidim But Not Arabs

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idf-soldier1The Israeli Justice Ministry is working on an arrangement for drafting religious Jews, but not Arabs – angering chareidi Ks who fear that this would prevent the formation of a charedi-Arab coalition on draft deferrals.

The Tal Law, which deferred military service for yeshiva students, was recently declared unconstitutional by the High Court of Justice.

Deputy Attorney General Mike Balas has written to the Knesset committee tasked with finding alternatives to the law that “for those who are not chareidi, there is no legal obligation to offer an alternative arrangement to the existing one.”

Haaretz has obtained a copy of the document, which outlines the legal aspects of the new arrangement and analyzes the High Court decision revoking the Tal Law. The  chareidi members of the committee, headed by MK Yochanan Plesner (Kadima ), were furious to learn that the new arrangement would not apply to Arabs and religious, non-chareidi women.

The Israeli Yated Neeman reported that Deputy Minister Yaakov Litzman and MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism ) had met with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to protest Balas’ letter.

“The committee will have to decide whether it wants a solution only to the yeshiva students’ obligations or a wider arrangement addressing other groups that don’t serve [in the Israel Defense Forces] such as Arab men and women, as well as Jewish religious women,” Balas wrote.

The debate on enlisting  chareidi men has been under way for many years, while the issue of enforcing national service on Arabs has only come up relatively recently, he says.

The  chareidi MKs apparently fear that if the committee adopts Balas’ suggestion, it would be impossible to form an ad hoc  chareidi-Arab coalition against the new arrangement. If the arrangement does not apply to Arabs, the Arab parties will not join forces with the  chareidi MKs to sabotage it.

The document says the new arrangement must take into account certain precepts to ensure it upholds the principle of equality, in case certain groups petition the High Court against it.

For example, the arrangement must include clear numerical goals for recruiting  chareidi men and the methods for obtaining them. Draft solutions may not consist of abbreviated military service of two to three months that were devised for  chareidim 27 and older.

The committee is expected to submit its recommendations for a successor to the Tal Law by the end of the month, with an eye to passing the new law by the end of July, before the Knesset’s summer recess.

The head of the Chiddush NGO for religious freedom and equality, Rabbi Uri Regev, said the High Court had ruled that yeshiva students would no longer be given the right to choose and must serve in the IDF. “Any solution that fails to uphold that [obligation] will not only be rejected with disgust by the public but will be blatantly unconstitutional,” he said.

“The committee has no authority to promote an arrangement that does not include the duty to serve …. The committee’s report must provide a historic solution to the discrimination, not a temporary answer to the coalition’s stability.”

{Haaretz/Matzav.com Israel}


4 COMMENTS

  1. All of a sudden (for the past few years) it has become imperative that chareidi men serve. The status quo of all the years past was okay; but now that they are gungho against the religious, they feel if they can force these men to serve, they feel certain that this will surely water down the observance of the chareidim – that is their real goal. Israel is now the state of ‘all its citizens’ -gevalt!

  2. There must be secret co-operation under the table going on. Even if the chareidim say they won’t participate in the committeee, they are certainly doing so unofficially. A coalition between Arabs and Charfedim woudl be a mjor chilul Hashem. Are chareidim allies of those who want us dead?

  3. The picture on top is not a good picture. The Zionist Army and serious shmiras hamitzvos are 2 things that work against each other.

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