From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Despite PM’s reported promise, Haredi draft bill will not be ready by High Holidays
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Legislation to regulate yeshiva students’ military service will not be completed by the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly promising last week to expedite a planned law facilitating sweeping exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox community from mandatory military service.
According to national broadcaster Kan, senior coalition officials dismissed a report in the ultra-Orthodox Hamodia newspaper that United Torah Judaism has demanded the bill be finished by the start of High Holidays, stating that such legislation will take time to complete.
“The responsibility to bring about a conscription law rests on the shoulders of the prime minister,” UTJ leader and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf’s office tells Kan in a statement.
The High Court mandated an end to broad exemptions for members of the Haredi community earlier this year after the government failed to legislate a law to regulate the matter.
Efforts to pass such a bill have become broadly unpopular since the start of the war in Gaza, with the army facing persistent manpower shortages and reservists being called up repeatedly. Multiple members of Netanyahu’s coalition including in his Likud party have warned they will not back any overly sweeping proposal.
According to Hebrew press reports, Netanyahu reportedly told Goldknopf that he would push to fast-track the exemption when the Knesset reconvenes from its current recess. Goldknopf has threatened to vote against the upcoming budget several months from now if the law does not advance, which could force elections.
Goldknopf told Netanyahu that his party would have quit the coalition long ago over the end of blanket military draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men if it were not for the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Kan reported.
Responding to these reports last week, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid stated that “the rational” members of the coalition, including from Netanyahu’s Likud party, will refuse to support a new draft exemption bill.
