Report: Coalition mulling change to draft exemption law to get around legal objection

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is reportedly considering amending its proposed ultra-Orthodox draft exemption law after the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s legal adviser objected, on the grounds of inequality, to a clause in the bill allowing up to ten percent of Haredi draftees to serve in non-military security services, such as the Shin Bet or Mossad.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the coalition is mulling changing the bill to stipulate that Haredim sent to such service tracks be officially considered IDF soldiers on loan to the security services — a move it says is opposed by the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties.

On Monday evening, committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor raised serious concerns over the proposed legislation, stating in a letter that the proposed civil-security service alternative, open only to graduates of ultra-Orthodox educational institutions, violates equality principles and is not equivalent to military service.

Addressing the committee yesterday, Frenkel Shor informed the parliamentary panel that “the civil-security service track, which is open only to graduates of Haredi educational institutions, constitutes a violation of equality, since the nature of national-civic service is fundamentally different from military service.”

Moreover, she argued, this track is of shorter duration than military service, does not include reserve duty and “does not currently meet the test of present security needs, which require increasing the number of IDF combat soldiers.”

Critics have argued that the current proposal, drafted by committee chairman Likud MK Boaz Bismuth and backed by Netanyahu, incentivizes Haredim to remain in yeshiva and not integrate into either the military or workforce in any meaningful way.