Lapid urges inclusion of Haredi draft bill in overhaul talks to avoid further rift
Yesh Atid, National Unity argue that issue was mentioned by president when he laid out framework for negotiations; coalition rejects idea, claims no time
Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid called Wednesday for the ongoing negotiations over the government’s plan to drastically overhaul the judiciary to also address a new proposal on exempting Haredim from serving in the military.
Speaking at the start of his Yesh Atid faction’s weekly meeting in the Knesset, Lapid said the topic must be open to negotiation to prevent a further rift in Israeli society.
His remarks came after representatives from Yesh Atid and fellow opposition party National Unity reportedly raised the matter during talks on the judicial overhaul with coalition representatives the day before.
Coalition officials rejected the idea on Tuesday, claiming there was no time to include the subject in the ongoing negotiations, Haaretz reported. The two sides are holding talks at President Isaac Herzog’s official residence in an effort to reach an agreement on the planned judicial changes, which have sparked months-long mass protests, with critics warning the overhaul will remove checks and balances to parliament’s power, degrading Israel’s democratic character.
At the beginning of the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting with some of his coalition partners to discuss potential new legislation on the military draft, weighing lowering the age at which members of the ultra-Orthodox community can get a formal, permanent exemption from service and thus be allowed to enter the workforce.
Addressing his party’s lawmakers at their faction meeting Wednesday, Lapid said the bill under discussion by the government is “a continuation of the attack on Israeliness, in the name of Judaism,” that threatens “the disintegration of Israeli society.”
“I suggest that the government — and especially the ultra-Orthodox parties — hold a dialogue on the conscription law,” he said. “Sit down together, talk about it at the President’s Residence; at least try to see if it is possible to agree to an outline that will not lead us to an even bigger rift.”
Lapid warned that if the government passes a new ultra-Orthodox draft law, “we will be forced to announce that we do not recognize it and will cancel it at the first opportunity we have.”
Fellow opposition lawmaker MK Avigdor Liberman, leader of the secularist Yisrael Beytenu party, criticized Yesh Atid and National Unity party lawmakers, saying they were continuing “to make mistakes and mislead the public” by insisting that an agreement can be reached on the matter with the ultra-Orthodox.
On Tuesday, Yesh Atid and National Unity representatives met with their coalition counterparts and asked that the draft law be included in the talks about the judicial overhaul, according to Haaretz. The opposition parties argue that a compromise road map unveiled by Herzog in March also mentioned discussing the ultra-Orthodox draft.
A source who was in the room told the paper that negotiations mediator Ovad Yehezkel, a former cabinet secretary, asked to speak privately with coalition representatives and said he will ultimately decide whether to accept the opposition parties’ request.
The next round of negotiations has been scheduled for Sunday, a week before the Knesset returns from its spring recess. A deadline to finish discussions has been set for the end of the coming Knesset session at the end of July.
For decades, ultra-Orthodox Israelis have enjoyed a near-blanket exemption from national service in favor of religious studies, but in 2012 the High Court of Justice struck down the law permitting the arrangement, ruling that it was discriminatory.
A new law was drafted to address the issue, but it too was overturned in 2017 by the court, which demanded that the government pass fresh legislation on the matter or else Haredi Israelis would be forced to enlist.
For the past six years, defense ministers have been requesting and receiving extensions from the court, as the government failed to draft and pass legislation that would both pass muster with Netanyahu’s Haredi coalition partners and also not fall afoul of the country’s discrimination laws. The current and 15th extension is scheduled to expire on July 31, 2023.
The latest proposal for the Haredi draft would lower the age of final exemption from the army from the current 26 to 23 or 21. While soldiers are generally drafted from age 18, many yeshiva students are thought to remain in religious study programs longer than they normally would in order to dodge the draft by claiming academic deferments until they reach the age of final exemption. By lowering the permanent exemption age, the government hopes to spur those Haredi men to leave the yeshiva and enter the workforce at a younger age.
The Haredi population of Israel overwhelmingly opposes performing mandated national civil or military service, seeing it as a way for secular forces to potentially draw away its members. Some more extreme elements in the Haredi community have protested violently against military conscription.
In the past, similar proposals to lower the age of exemption have been fiercely opposed by ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, who claim it is a ploy to draw Haredim out of Torah studies and the Haredi way of life.
According to unsourced figures cited by Channel 12 news on Sunday, some 11,000 Haredi males turn 18 each year, of whom about 10 percent — 1,200 — are conscripted in the IDF.
The Times of Israel Community.