Bismuth appears to confirm conscription bill would exempt full-time yeshiva students, gradually draft half of those not learning

The latest draft of the government’s controversial legislation regulating ultra-Orthodox conscription is “more or less ready” and enjoys the backing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth announces.

The “locomotive is ready to leave the station [and is] waiting for passengers,” he says. “I am in full coordination with the prime minister. The prime minister wants this law, very much so.”

Speaking with Channel 12’s “Meet The Press,” the Likud lawmaker rejects media reports regarding the contents of the bill — widely seen as intended to codify draft exemptions for much of the Haredi community, impose weak sanctions on evaders and pave the way for the ultra-Orthodox parties to return to the coalition — insisting that he “will present the final text to my colleagues on the committee” and that “the fake news I keep hearing is simply not true.”

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

Bismuth’s version of the bill was set to be presented to his committee nearly a month ago, but has repeatedly been postponed.

Bismuth appears to confirm hints that the bill will allow those enrolled full-time in yeshiva to continue their studies without fear of conscription, stating that “within five years, 50 percent of those not in yeshiva” will enlist in the army — a development which he calls “huge.”

He further states that there will be an “oversight mechanism” and sanctions, and that only 10% of those mobilized will serve in national service, as opposed to military service. However, Bismuth rejects the idea of a “revolution” in Haredi enlistment, comparing it instead to the gradual increase in female combat troops over the years.

Two decades ago, there were debates over women in combat, but “today, when my daughter comes back from Gaza with a red beret, it’s obvious. It’s the same with Haredim — each one who enlists is an ambassador,” he says.