Gallant: IDF needs flexible regulations on Haredi draft, not a law setting quotas
Defense minister slams government for failing to provide army with enough manpower, notes 10,000 new troops needed but IDF can only accommodate 3,000 ultra-Orthodox this year
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told lawmakers that government regulations rather than legislation should be used to address the sticky situation of how the military deals with drafting members of the ultra-Orthodox community.
Speaking to the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday, Gallant indicated that the greater flexibility of government regulations, which can be set and changed by fiat, would be better suited to address the Israel Defense Forces manpower issues, according to a source who was at the closed-doors meeting.
Gallant told the committee that the number of ultra-Orthodox conscripts required by the IDF each year should not be set via legislation, the passage of which has proven to be a lengthy process that left the government with little to show for it. Government regulations that would adapt each year according to the army’s needs would be better, he said, in comments likely to further increase tensions with the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties.
According to reports, the two ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition have agreed to a deal that would see the quota of members of their communities to be enlisted set at 25 percent of eligible recruits for the first year, followed by 5% annual increases until the number hits 50%. However, negotiations were torpedoed by differences over whether to implement the changes as a law or as regulations, coupled with arguments over sanctions for draft dodgers.
The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is currently working on an ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill that chairman Yuli Edelstein, a Likud lawmaker, has said will only advance “with broad agreement.” The attempt to find a legislative formula taking into account those opposed to exemptions for the Haredi community has angered ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, who are seeking a way to enshrine exemptions in law and avoid young Haredi men and women being called up at the same rates as other Jewish Israelis.
If passed, the legislation would set the age of exemption from mandatory service for Haredi yeshiva students at 21 while “very slowly” increasing the rate of ultra-Orthodox enlistment. Gallant, who has also said he will only support legislation on the matter that has broad buy-in, was the only member of the coalition to vote against reviving the bill, which initially passed its first reading under the previous government. At the time it was introduced under then-defense minister Benny Gantz, the bill was expected to be accompanied by a framework that would extend the national service requirement to both ultra-Orthodox and Arab Israelis.
Other members of the coalition have also spoken out against the bill but unlike Gallant, they have expressed the belief that it could be substantially revised in committee before it was passed.
In the wake of the government’s inability to deal with the issue, the High Court of Justice ruled last week that there was no legal basis for excluding Haredi men from the military draft, leading the Attorney General’s Office to instruct the Israel Defense Forces to immediately draft 3,000 Haredi young men.
The long-simmering issue has come to a head as the military deals with manpower shortages wrought by months of fighting in Gaza and the possibility of war against the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
The military currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers, Gallant told the committee Monday, but can only accommodate the enlistment of an additional 3,000 ultra-Orthodox this year, which would be in addition to the 1,800 Haredi soldiers who are drafted annually.
Gallant noted that alongside the inability to find a solution to Haredi conscription, the committee had also failed to raise the age at which reservists are no longer called up after a vote on the move was delayed by Edelstein last week.
Instead, as of Monday, the length of mandatory conscription for all men, as well as any women serving in combat roles, had been shortened from 32 months to 30, despite Gallant requesting several months ago that mandatory service be lengthened to 36 months.
Lambasting the government for failing to meet the needs of the military, Gallant told the committee that the Finance Ministry was leading the opposition to extending the length of service due to financial considerations, and others were also raising obstacles.
“The Justice Ministry and the attorney general are actually creating problems,” he said.
“All the vectors are working in the opposite direction to our needs,” he lamented. “Unlike planes and bombs, soldiers cannot be brought from outside the country.”
The High Court’s decision means that after decades of political and societal controversy and strife over the issue, there is now a legal obligation for young Haredi men to join most of their Israeli peers and serve in the military.
The Defense Ministry refused to say Monday if it had begun drafting members of the ultra-Orthodox community in line with the attorney general’s directive. The prospect of enlistment has touched off mass protests in the Haredi community, including large demonstrations in Jerusalem Sunday that turned violent. Five people were arrested in clashes, during which protesters also lit fires in the street and attacked the car of UTJ party leader Yitzhak Goldknopf.
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.
