Watchdog files High Court petition requesting IDF immediately draft 63,000 ultra-Orthodox men

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel files a petition to the High Court of Justice requesting that it order the government and the IDF to immediately draft 63,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into military service, accusing the IDF of ignoring the court’s ruling.

“The IDF is crassly trampling on the principle of equality and the rule of law, while brazenly ignoring repeated High Court rulings,” says Movement for Quality Government chairman Eliad Shraga.

The High Court of Justice ruled in June that the government is obligated to conscript ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into military service since all legal frameworks for exempting them have expired. Although the court did not stipulate how and in what timeframe Haredi yeshiva students should be drafted, the attorney general instructed the government to “act immediately” to begin the process of drafting some 4,800 students for the 2024 enlistment year.

The army and defense ministry have been engaged in discussions on how to implement the ruling but have yet to issue conscription orders to any yeshiva students eligible for the draft.

The new petition emphasizes the IDF’s stated need for increased manpower due to the current war and the losses it has sustained, and calls on the court to reject putative plans to selectively draft only some yeshiva students who fit certain criteria, arguing that this would constitute an illegal form of selective enforcement of the law.

The petition also alleges that the army has held secret meetings with rabbinic leaders of the community to formulate a conscription plan to implement the selective enforcement model, so that yeshiva students who work, in violation of the terms of the previous military service exemptions, or are married with children, or have smartphones, will be drafted.

The National Insurance Institute confirmed earlier this month that the army had sought information on which yeshiva students eligible for the draft had received salaries while supposedly studying, ostensibly to target them for conscription.

Last week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that the military will begin the process of drafting ultra-Orthodox men starting in August, “in accordance with the [IDF’s] absorption and screening capabilities, and after a significant process of refining the existing data regarding potential recruits is carried out.”