Knesset set to approve ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions until 2023

The Knesset on Monday is set to vote on an amendment to the Equal Service law, which would dramatically roll back the 2014 reforms on ultra-Orthodox recruitment into the IDF and strike the communal penalties imposed if the annual quotas for Haredi soldiers are not met.

The amendment, forcefully opposed by the Yesh Atid party which spearheaded the earlier legislation, passed its first reading last week, and was approved by the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for second and third readings.

As part of negotiations with the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox parties last week to pass the two-year budget, the coalition’s party leaders have pledged to support the amendment, indicating that it will pass into law on Monday, barring any last-minute opposition from individual coalition lawmakers.

As part of the proposed changes, the transition period before the law goes into effect will be extended from 2017 to 2020, with an additional second-tier transition period through 2023. The 2014 legislation had set rising quotas for ultra-Orthodox enlistment that if not met by 2017 would prompt the mandatory draft of all ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students under 24. As part of the original law, the defense minister would be given the authority to exempt some 1,800 exceptional yeshiva students from the recruitment, and those who fail to report for duty would be liable for criminal prosecution as draft-dodgers. This last provision was stridently decried by the ultra-Orthodox community, who termed the decision a “persecution” against yeshiva students and the community as a whole.

However, the new amendment overturns the penalties against all yeshiva students, and states that the defense minister be given the authority to determine how to proceed if the quotas aren’t met. The new law also effectively eliminates the full implementation of the law, leaving the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox students after 2023 entirely to the discretion of the defense minister.

The passage of the amendment would be a considerable blow to the Opposition’s Yesh Atid party, which spearheaded it as part of the coalition in the previous Knesset. Opposition lawmakers, including Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, have accused the government of “caving” to the ultra-Orthodox to win political support.

Coalition lawmakers, meanwhile, who both supported and formulated the earlier draft law, explained their about-face by saying the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox community into the Israeli army cannot be coercive.

The Likud’s Yoav Kisch, who prior to entering the Knesset led a campaign in favor of the Equal Service law, said on Thursday “we don’t want enlistment by force. There is no quick fix. We need a process, and dialogue.”

Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi said during the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting Thursday that “one cannot argue with the moral idea of equality of the burden,” using the Hebrew term adopted to refer to the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox.

“In the Shaked Committee [that drafted the law], a majority of the members opposed the criminal sanctions,” Hanegbi said. “The only one that supported and pushed it was Lapid who applied political pressure. Today, we are effectively approving what most of the Shaked Committee members asked to advance originally.”

Lapid, meanwhile, said: “We are talking about Jews who live here just like us and we share a common fate.”

“We must ask ourselves, are we one nation and is everyone equal in the eyes of the law? We need one ethos with no distinction between blood and blood,” he said.

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s legal adviser has objected to the amendment, saying “these explanations, in our view, do not justify the extension of the transition period by six years, the creation of a second transition period for another three years, the cancellation of the permanent law, and the lack of acknowledgement of the permanent arrangement after 2023.” However, despite the reservations presented in the committee, the bill passed with no revisions in a committee vote after some nine hours of debate on Thursday.

The ultra-Orthodox community has historically enjoyed blanket exemptions from the army for Torah study.

According to a report by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, in the first five decades after the establishment of the State of Israel, the exemptions were overseen solely by the defense minister. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the defense minister was not authorized to exempt what had swelled to some tens of thousands of students, and said any arrangement on army enlistment must be anchored in law and handled by Israel’s parliament. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Knesset passed the Tal Law as a five-year interim law, under which yeshiva students were eligible to receive yearly deferments and exemptions from army service. In 2006, the Supreme Court upheld the contentious law, while noting that it compromises Israel’s equality. A year later, the Knesset extended the Tal Law by five years, prompting the Supreme Court to rule that it was unconstitutional.

The striking of the Tal Law led to the 2014 enlistment legislation, which is also pending a petition in the High Court. The new amendment, if it passes, will likely prompt Yesh Atid to file a petition to the High Court as well.