Bismuth said to push for interim ’emergency regulation’ on issue of Haredi enlistment

Viewing the passage of an IDF conscription law in the near-term as increasingly unlikely, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth is reportedly pushing for the approval of a wartime “emergency regulation” which would allow for the immediate conscription of enough soldiers to fill the military’s current manpower shortage while also lifting sanctions on ultra-Orthodox draft evaders.

According to the Walla news site, Bismuth supports the adoption of such a measure for the period of one year, during which time an unspecified number of Haredim would be drafted “according to the needs of the army.”

At the same time, enforcement against Haredi draft dodgers would be halted. This would include an end to arrest operations by military police and the resumption of yeshiva funding. Last year, the government cut off significant funding to yeshivas in the wake of a High Court order barring it from providing money for students eligible for IDF enlistment. The Attorney General’s Office has also ordered a halt to daycare subsidies for the children of draft evaders.

Bismuth was selected last month to head the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is drafting legislation dealing with ultra-Orthodox conscription, following the ouster of former chairman Yuli Edelstein.

Responding to the Walla report, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman declares that “the evasion government has no right to exist” because it is “once again succumbing to the extortion of the ultra-Orthodox activists in the Knesset.”

Bismuth is “harming national security,” he tweets. “Instead of strengthening the IDF and drafting everyone, he seeks to cancel sanctions and protects deserters.”