IDF chief issues harsh warning against ‘inconceivable’ bill freezing Haredi enlistment

After a Knesset committee approved a bill for its final readings that will effectively freeze ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the military for seven months, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir issues a harsh letter calling the proposal “clearly and unequivocally inconsistent with the IDF’s needs.”

Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, Zamir writes that the proposed mechanism, under which officers would approve the status of yeshiva students in order to grant them immunity from arrest for draft evasion, “undermines the legitimacy of and trust among those who serve.”

“It is inconceivable that the military system under my command, which demands unprecedented sacrifice from its personnel, would be party to granting mass exemptions from prosecution,” he writes.

Zamir adds that “such a move would create a deep rift with the serving force, which has borne the burden of the fighting for two and a half years, and would increase inequality.”