Chair of Knesset defense committee says enlistment bill must provide ‘a real answer’

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) calls to pass a law providing a solution to the IDF’s manpower needs during a hearing on a controversial bill dealing with the military service of yeshiva students.

“I saw the headlines and heard all kinds of definitions — the draft law, the non-draft law, the evasion law, it’s not relevant. What is placed before the committee is essentially a platform, a shortcut to bureaucratic procedural procedures. We have the possibility, based on this platform, to enact a new law and provide a real answer to the needs of the IDF and the security system for the new reality,” he says.

“We need to provide a short-term solution that will also work in the long-term. This means allowing an ultra-Orthodox guy who enlists to also emerge as ultra-Orthodox. It is not always simple, there will also be conflicting values, but the IDF must prepare,” Edelstein adds.