Slamming proposed draft law, Yair Golan says no Haredi men should be exempt from military service

Yair Golan derides a government-backed bill to regulate Haredi army enlistment, calling it a bill that allows for draft evasion, rather than a “draft law.”

“It is not a draft law, it is a law that permits draft evasion, a law with no personal sanctions, a law that, in practice, I don’t think will get through the Supreme Court,” he says in an interview with Channel 12. “A new draft law is supposed to create equality, create a process that will lead to equality, and this law doesn’t do that.”

The bill, unveiled Thursday by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students and soften penalties for draft evaders while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.

When asked about his ideal target number of conscripts from the Haredi world, Golan insists that everyone should serve in the military, and that anyone who wants to study in religious institutions can do so afterward.

“Torah students are just like physics students, math students and students of every other profession. They must serve, and afterwards go and learn — what’s the issue?” he says.

Asked whether he thinks all parties in the opposition will be willing to form a government with Arab parties in order to topple the current government, Golan says it is crucial that “not even one of the parties in the current coalition will be in the [next] coalition.”

“It is important for the State of Israel… that the corrupt draft evaders and nationalist extremists will not be in the next government,” he says emphatically. “If you are asking if I prefer to set up this government, that Mansour Abbas be in the government, the answer is yes.”