Edelstein says Knesset close to drafting new enlistment law, won’t accept ultimatums
‘The goal of this law is to reach a kind of agreement with the rabbis and the Haredi leadership,’ Defense Ministry deputy director tells MKs
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"
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Likud MK Yuli Edelstein asserted Sunday that the panel he heads is nearing a final draft of a law regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
While he will not “not accept ultimatums from any side” regarding completing work on a bill, Edelstein said, within the next two weeks the committee’s “professional legal team” will be able to begin to “formulate a draft” of the controversial legislation.
However, he added, “I cannot commit to a date and I am not willing to commit to a date” because a strict timeline could lead to a bad legislative outcome, he told lawmakers.
Edelstein had declared several days ago that the committee would continue to hear testimony and background data for several more sessions before drafting a final version of the bill. That earlier assertion had come after the publication of a recording of an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that the government plans on passing such a bill “with or without” Edelstein.
Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have been pushing for the passage of legislation enshrining military exemptions for yeshiva students and other members of the Haredi community, after the High Court ruled in June last year that the dispensations, in place for decades, were illegal since they were not based in law.
Edelstein has long stood as a barrier to the controversial legislation’s passage, personally signing a declaration of principles calling for mass mobilization of Haredi men as well as the imposition of “personal and financial sanctions” on those who fail to obey draft orders.
He has also explicitly stated that he is under no obligation to agree with the position of the government on the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment, rejecting a plan proposed by Defense Minister Israel Katz to gradually increase the number of ultra-Orthodox recruits year-over-year until it hits 50 percent of the annual eligible Haredi draft cohort in 2032.
Addressing the committee, Yaakov (Kobi) Blitstein, deputy director general of the Defense Ministry, continued to back Katz’s plan, saying that the number of Haredim conscripted should gradually rise over the next seven years while insisting that “the goal of this law is to reach a kind of agreement with the rabbis and the Haredi leadership, whose representatives are here in the Knesset.”
The Haredi leadership has overwhelmingly rejected the conscription of yeshiva students, instructing them to ignore the army’s summonses.
Blitstein clarified that while the yearly draft targets would be calculated based on the annual draft cohort of young men turning 18, orders would be sent out more widely to members of the overall recruitment pool of eligible Haredim.
Addressing the government’s failure to meet this year’s target, Blitstein added that “the issue of enforcement is clear in today’s law — that anyone who deserts has disciplinary measures against him.”
“It’s not that there is no sanction for the army today, it’s just that it’s not being used. Why hasn’t it been used in the last 20 years? It is like in many other areas that are not enforced. In 2025, we are seeing a drastic increase in the number of those detained at Ben Gurion Airport,” he said.
Since January, 340 people eligible for enlistment have been held up at the airport, 322 of them while attempting to exit the country. Of that number, 100 people, half of them Haredi, were prevented from leaving.
Addressing the committee last Wednesday, Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, head of the Haredi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, indicated that despite the army aiming to recruit 4,800 Haredi men during the 2024-2025 draft cycle, only 1,721 have enlisted thus far.
“We set ourselves a target of 4,800 and we will not reach that. There is an upward trend here, but it is not sufficient and does not correspond to the very large operational need,” he said.
Out of 18,915 Haredi men issued conscription orders during the current enlistment cycle, only 232 have joined the army, 57 of them in combat roles.
“Currently, the most significant and effective sanction is Ben Gurion Airport; there is currently no other sanction,” Dickstein said. “There is the ability to make arrests, but it is extremely ineffective. If I grab him and put him in a police car, will he end up enlisting?”
Commenting on the government’s failure to enlist significant numbers of ultra-Orthodox, former premier Naftali Bennett on Saturday charged that what he called Netanyahu’s policy of “preventing the military enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox” was keeping Israel in a stalemate with Hamas in Gaza.
On Sunday morning, the High Court of Justice issued a provisional order demanding the government explain its failure to issue enough conscription orders to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to meet the needs of the IDF, and its failure to enforce the orders it has issued.
The Times of Israel Community.