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Monday, March 30, 2026
Bismuth says he will advance draft exemption bill that was taken off Knesset agenda
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MK Boaz Bismuth, the chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, says he will advance a controversial bill that will enshrine sweeping exemptions from military conscription for Haredi yeshiva students.
Haredi allies of Likud in the government have long demanded the bill, which Bismuth championed. But it has drawn criticism from a wide array of voices.
Critics say it will not bring significant numbers of new soldiers into the IDF’s ranks at a time when the military says it urgently needs more soldiers, and will not lead to equitable participation in Israel’s draft.
The bill was taken off the table with the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran roughly a month ago. But now, Bismuth, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, says the bill will be put back on the agenda as part of a legislative package intended to shore up the IDF as it is strained by fighting on multiple fronts.
That concern was driven home last week when IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir reportedly warned the cabinet that the IDF will ‘collapse in on itself’ amid the manpower shortage.
Bismuth says he will advance the legislation along with bills that would lengthen the term of mandatory service and further regulate reserve duty.
“The prime minister and I have decided, at the request of the chief of staff, to advance legislation including three [proposed] laws: A law lengthening service, the draft law and the reservists law, as a single package of laws to strengthen the IDF’s manpower array,” he says, according to Hebrew media reports.
The Times of Israel Community.