Knesset panel to begin discussing Bismuth’s draft exemption bill this week

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to begin discussions Monday on chairman Boaz Bismuth’s revision of a government-backed bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment, paving the way for its continued advancement toward the final two readings necessary for it to become law.

Bismuth released the text of the long-awaited bill on Thursday, prompting criticism from within coalition ranks, opposition figures and legal advisers, including FADC committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor.

According to a Channel 13 report on Friday, Frenkel Shor is dissatisfied with the proposed legislation. The adviser reportedly said that the bill “is not a conscription law,” adding that neither she nor the High Court would approve it in its current form, unless “provisions” are changed.

The legislation, as currently laid out, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.

However, the current bill removes various provisions from a previous draft that were intended to ensure that those registered for yeshiva study are actually studying, and cancels all sanctions on draft evaders when they turn 26.

Many ultra-Orthodox young men are widely believed to register for yeshiva but not actually study, yet the yeshiva continues to be funded for their ostensible presence, and the young men evade military service.

For the past year, Haredi leadership has pushed to pass a law largely keeping its constituency out of the Israel Defense Forces, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

Former defense minister Yoav Gallant lambasted the government over its support for the bill, saying the legislation was a “grave departure from Israel’s Zionist path.”

“No less grave is that the person who is spearheading it is from the main Zionist party, the Likud movement, which has reached a new low in this matter,” he told Channel 12 in an interview on Saturday.

According to Gallant, the bill unveiled by Bismuth would mean that in practice, one in every four Jewish males would not enlist. Taking Haredi demographic growth into account, the ratio would become one in three within just 15 years. “We can’t allow ourselves this from a security perspective,” said the ex-minister.

He claimed that the gap between Likud politicians and voters has never been wider due to the right-wing party’s backing of the bill.

“Everyone who votes for Likud, the Likud activists, every one of them has a brother, son, daughter in the IDF. [If the bill passes,] they will do more mandatory service and more reserve service. This thing is inconceivable, especially at this moment,” he said.

He told the interviewer that he fought tooth and nail over the issue of Haredi enlistment, which was the main reason for his sacking by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I fought over this matter, and also paid with my position, because it is the most important thing,” he said, adding, “That [Netanyahu] put a narrow political consideration over the country, over the army, is very grave.”

Gallant resigned from the Knesset in January, accusing Netanyahu and his replacement as defense chief, Israel Katz, of endangering the security of the country by backing a draft exemption law for the ultra-Orthodox community.

He said he was dismissed as defense minister in November 2024  because he refused to capitulate on the issue and said he would not be a partner to Netanyahu and Katz’s efforts, charging that the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox was a “military necessity.”

The Democrats party chief Yair Golan also spoke out against the bill on Saturday, calling it a “draft evasion” bill rather than a “draft law.”

“It is not a draft law, it is a law that permits draft evasion, a law with no personal sanctions, a law that, in practice, I don’t think will get through the Supreme Court,” Golan said in an interview with Channel 12. “A new draft law is supposed to create equality, create a process that will lead to equality, and this law doesn’t do that.”

Golan, a former deputy IDF chief, said that “Torah students are just like physics students, math students and students of every other profession. They must serve, and afterwards go and learn — what’s the issue?”