From the Liveblog of
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Katz to present Haredi enlistment proposal at key Knesset committee next week
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"
Defense Minister Israel Katz will present his long-awaited proposal formulating an outline for ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday next week, a spokesman for committee chairman Yuli Edelstein announces.
The minister’s proposed compromise bill will contain “principles for achieving the goal of a significant increase in the number of yeshiva students serving,” along with anchoring the status of the full-time yeshiva students who will remain exempt from conscription.
The government, at the behest of the Haredi Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, is attempting to pass a bill that would see some increased enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men, but would broadly maintain the decades-long, widescale exemption of the community from military or national service.
The issue is a highly controversial one, with Haredi leaders vehemently opposed to the community’s young men serving in the military, fearing they will be secularized, and non-Haredi Israelis saying the exemptions harm the value of equality and the needs of the army for more manpower during wartime.
The bill is currently stuck in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, with Edelstein insisting that the needs of the IDF must come first and that the panel will only advance the legislation if lawmakers can reach a “broad consensus” on the matter.
During a meeting of the committee last month, Katz called for annual recruitment targets within what he termed a reasonable range, playing up the idea that half of eligible draftees could end up serving, while the rest continue studying in yeshivas. In response, Edelstein warned against any attempt to bypass his committee on the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
Yesterday, the state told the High Court of Justice that starting in 2026, there will be no limit to the number of ultra-Orthodox servicemen the Israel Defense Forces will have the capacity to enlist. According to multiple Hebrew media reports, Katz attempted to delay the filing of the state’s response in order to remove this assessment.
Netanyahu had reportedly promised his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners that Katz’s proposal would be submitted this week, but the issue of Haredi enlistment was left off the committee’s agenda.
