IDF admits no proactive enforcement against Haredi draft dodgers in recent months

The IDF admits that it has not been actively working to enforce enlistment orders against ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers “in the recent period,” despite repeated orders by the High Court of Justice that conscription laws must be enforced against Haredi men who fail to enlist.

The comments are published after an incident in which hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protesters clashed with police at an apartment building in Modiin overnight in an effort to prevent Military Police officers from arresting a Haredi draft dodger, causing security forces to leave without taking the man into custody.

A summary of a recent review of implementation of the High Court orders by the Attorney General’s Office issued today states that IDF officials acknowledged “active enforcement has not happened and arrests have not been made in the recent period,” without specifying a particular timeframe for the lack of enforcement.

The IDF officials tell the Attorney General’s Office that arrests of Haredi draft dodgers had not been conducted because there had been a focus on “concentrating efforts” to arrest draft dodgers discovered trying to leave the country at border crossings during the recent holiday season.

They say that 212 draft dodgers were arrested at various border crossings, mostly Ben Gurion Airport, between September 1 and September 22, 163 of whom were from the Haredi community.

It appears that the lack of active efforts to conduct arrests away from the border crossings dates back at least two months and possibly even back to July, when the government passed a law banning the IDF and police for a seven-month period from arresting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who have failed to report for military service.

The High Court immediately froze the implementation of that legislation on July 15, just one day after the law had been passed, although cabinet ministers called on law enforcement authorities to abide by the legislation anyway and ignore the court.

The High Court struck down the law as discriminatory and unconstitutional in September.

“The fact that for quite some time no proactive action has been taken against draft evaders and deserters, including arrests, is not consistent with security needs, in particular because of the senior army command’s position that expanding the conscript army is a strategic need, [and is also not consistent with] the value of equality, the state’s commitments to the High Court, and the High Court ruling which determined that the law that prevented arrests of yeshiva students must be declared void,” says Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon in the summary document.