AG: Haredi draft bill must include personal sanctions against dodgers, consider post-Oct. 7 reality

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara writes to Defense Minister Israel Katz, stating that a bill currently being drafted to regulate the enlistment of some ultra-Orthodox men to the military — while exempting many others — must include personal sanctions against draft dodgers and take into account the fundamentally changed reality since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, including the security threats and the needs of the manpower-strapped army.

Baharav-Miara says she has received information that the legislation is currently being drafted based on a bill that passed its first reading in 2022 and has been revived in the current Knesset, arguing that the current bill cannot resemble that draft.

She warns that past outlines and assumptions regarding the number and age of people to be recruited, the pace of the process, the length of the service, and the lack of personal sanctions, “are no longer relevant.”

Therefore, Baharav-Miara says, “it is required to set provisions that enable the imposition of personal sanctions on individuals.” Such sanctions are vehemently opposed by the Haredi political and religious leadership, which objects to members of the community serving in the army, fearing they will be secularized.

The attorney general warns that without the bill being sent to her office, “no proper procedure for legal advice can be done by anyone, including the defense establishment’s legal advice bodies.”

She contends that advancing the law without consulting her office “is another procedural fault” in addition to several other steps she contends were taken to circumvent her office.

In a landmark ruling in June, the High Court of Justice ruled unanimously that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military since there is no longer any legal framework to continue the decades-long practice of granting them blanket exemptions from army service.

Legislation dealing with the issue of enlistment is currently stuck in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, has said that the needs of the IDF must come first and that the panel would only advance the legislation if lawmakers can reach a “broad consensus” on the matter.

The ultra-Orthodox coalition parties are demanding contentious legislation that broadly maintains the widescale exemption from IDF or other national service of ultra-Orthodox males. Netanyahu, whose governing majority depends on the support of the UTJ and Shas parties, has been seeking to meet their demand, in the face of bitter political and public opposition, especially given the unprecedented burden on the IDF, notably including reservists, more than 14 months into a multifront war.

Sam Sokol contributed to this report.