From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Knesset shoots down Yisrael Beytenu bill extending draft to Haredi, Arab communities
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"
An opposition bill to draft ultra-Orthodox and Arab youth fails to pass a preliminary reading 36-61 in the Knesset plenum.
The legislation, proposed by Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, would have required all 18-year-olds, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Circassians, to either enlist in the military or perform alternate national service, or face legal sanctions such as travel restrictions and the loss of certain tax benefits.
“We are in a much more complex and difficult situation” following October 7 “and therefore the demand for a conscription law is not a spiteful proposal,” Liberman says, arguing that Israelis must “rise above all political interests and understand that these are basic security interests.”
“There can no longer be a story of goals and quotas,” he adds in which appears to be a veiled criticism of Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who has proposed separate legislation relying on a quota system to mobilize previously exempt yeshiva students.
Liberman’s remarks spur an angry response from Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem, who accuses Liberman and Lapid of pushing the issue out of political concerns.
“We will carry out a dialogue with the Haredi community and find a real solution” that includes allowing young men to continue their Talmudic studies, Amsalem insists.
The issue of Haredi exemptions from Israel’s mandatory draft has received renewed attention since the outbreak of war in Gaza, and in particular in recent weeks, after the IDF and government proposed changes to the security service and reserve service laws that would see a significant increase in the length of time conscripts and reservists serve, due to manpower shortages caused by the war and hostilities on the northern border.
National Unity ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot last week presented their own outline for the establishment of a “unified recruitment directorate” to oversee exemptions. While they did not propose specific quotas of Haredi recruits, Gantz indicated that the number should increase gradually year-over-year, and said that while most Haredim would be drafted under the plan, there would still remain an “elite who will continue to study, and many will serve at the same time as studying.”
The Attorney General’s Office recently told the High Court that without an extension to a government resolution from June 2023 — which temporarily permitted the government to not draft ultra-Orthodox men while a solution was formulated — the state will not be legally entitled to continue exempting the group from military conscription and will need to start enlisting them on April 1.
