Arresting yeshiva students for draft dodging will backfire, cabinet secretary warns
During debate on enlistment legislation, Fuchs says ‘process that will lead to the Haredim enlisting is a gradual one’ and must involve consensus
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Any legislation dealing with ultra-Orthodox enlistment must be formulated to address concerns about how it will affect Torah study and potential secularization, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs said on Monday, warning that arresting yeshiva students for draft-dodging could provoke a backlash that would undercut any conscription push.
“The Haredi public sees Torah study as a supreme value. Naturally, not everyone studies day and night. The two biggest challenges facing the Haredi public are a worldview that prioritizes Torah study and fear of a process of secularization,” the senior official told members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“The success of the draft can only take place under conditions that meet these challenges.”
Insisting that the ultra-Orthodox draft must begin with those who do not learn full-time in yeshiva, Fuchs argued that, “if you arrest those who learn day and night in yeshiva and turn them into criminals, you’ll turn the entire Haredi community into the Jerusalem Faction.”
The so-called Jerusalem Faction is an extremist ultra-Orthodox group numbering some 60,000 members that is considered among the most hardline opponents of efforts to extend enlistment requirements to yeshiva students and other Haredi men.
“The process that will lead to the Haredim enlisting is a gradual one that must take place in spaces of consensus,” or Haredim will continue to fail to enlist when called up, Fuchs insisted. “When the IDF says it needs 10,000, it does not only mean Haredim, but also through increasing regular service to 36 months, raising the exemption age, and more.”
The army has previously told the committee that, assuming it is provided with the necessary resources, it will be able to absorb Haredim “without any restrictions” starting in 2026.
However, Defense Minister Katz has argued that this is not practical and has instead pushed for gradually increasing the number of Haredim drafted into the military until it reaches 50 percent of the annual eligible Haredi draft cohort in 2032.
During a hearing on the matter last week, Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa, head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, said that the military needs an additional 10,000 soldiers, making the conscription of ultra-Orthodox men a “clear operational need.”
Kalifa also urged lawmakers to impose “much more effective sanctions” on individuals who dodge the draft in order to improve enlistment numbers.
Turning to the bill dealing with the issue of enlistment currently before the committee, Fuchs said that he supported annual enlistment targets, rather than a quota system in which a designated number of Haredim are allowed to learn full-time, while the rest are required to serve.
“Everyone knows, both in the coalition and in the opposition, that the issue of quotas is a deal-breaker,” he said, adding that sanctions should be imposed on the entire eligible pool of recruits if the collective enlistment target is not met.
Responding to Fuchs, a Finance Ministry representative argued that collective sanctions are ineffective and that using targets rather than quotas have proven ineffective in the past.
Fuchs’s comments came as lawmakers restarted work on a government-backed enlistment bill, which has been stuck in the committee since last summer. Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud), has stated that he will “only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”
During a hearing last week on Defense Minister Katz’s proposed amendments to the legislation, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon told lawmakers that the government’s plan will not satisfy the IDF’s manpower needs and is therefore incompatible with last summer’s High Court ruling that the government must draft Haredi yeshiva students into the military.
The court’s ruling constitutes the starting point for any legislation on the issue, and mandates “general conscription, an administrative obligation on the army to enforce it equitably, and a prohibition on the state providing funding” for draft dodgers, Limon said during that previous discussion.
However, “the scope of conscription presented by the minister is lower than the army’s needs, and the rate of conscription also does not match the army’s needs in terms of force building,” he said.
