Revised ultra-Orthodox military draft bill said to reduce penalties for dodgers

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth’s revised bill to regulate the military conscription of — and exemptions for — the ultra-Orthodox community features reduced penalties for draft evasion and lowered requirements for draft exemption for yeshiva students, according to Hebrew media reports.

Under his new bill, set to be presented to lawmakers on Monday, the amount of time students must be enrolled in a yeshiva to qualify for a military exemption has been reduced from three years to two, according to Channel 12, which first reported on the bill’s content Tuesday.

While the Bismuth plan sets a long-term target of enlisting 50 percent of each annual ultra-Orthodox draft cohort within five years, critics said the bill is more of a symbolic effort than a serious enforcement tool, offering incentives and loopholes that may allow many ultra-Orthodox young men to avoid service entirely.

For the past year, the ultra-Orthodox leadership has pushed to pass a law keeping its constituency, also known as Haredi, out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein was ousted as chairman of the powerful defense committee in July, after the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties quit the government over his version of an enlistment bill, which would have levied harsh sanctions on draft evaders. He was replaced by fellow Likud lawmaker Bismuth, who set to work on a new draft of the legislation more palatable to the two Haredi parties.

Under the new proposal, participation in national service programs will be counted toward military service, mandatory appearances at draft offices will be canceled, and restrictions on overseas travel for draft evaders will apply only until age 26.

Bismuth’s framework also does away with a quota from previous proposals to set the portion of Haredi students who are drafted to combat units, though the framework stipulates that those enrolled in national service programs can fill such a quota. The army has said it has no way to control how many draftees are fit for combat service anyway, Channel 12 reported.

In addition, a previous proposal to cancel the driving licenses of draft dodgers has been softened to only deny new licenses to those who are applying for the first time, but not cancel those that have already been issued.

Edelstein responded sarcastically to the reported Bismuth proposal in a statement: “I don’t have the skills to put together an evasion bundle instead of a draft law.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid posted to X that the proposal is “a disgraceful evasion law that spits in the face of the combat soldiers.”

The head of the Yisrael Beytenu opposition party, Avigdor Liberman, a staunch advocate for drafting the Haredi community, posted an image to X of Shas party leader Aryeh Deri and Degel Hatorah chairman Moshe Gafni holding puppet strings to control Bismuth.

“I am not sure that puppet-Bismuth even read the evasion bill proposal that he was told to produce,” he wrote.

אני לא בטוח שהבובה-ביסמוט אפילו קרא את נוסח חוק ההשתמטות שאמרו לו להוציא. pic.twitter.com/zAm4Ow2EF7

— אביגדור ליברמן (@AvigdorLiberman) October 28, 2025

Blue and White opposition party leader Benny Gantz also criticized the bill, calling it “another coalition deal at the expense of our children. Israel’s security should not be a political card. Shame on you.”

There was also pushback from within the ruling Likud party, with member Dan Illouz posting to X that the bill “won’t draft Haredim and will harm the [military] serving public who vote for us.”

“I don’t think that this bill will pass,” Likud MK Moshe Saada told Army Radio on Wednesday.

Saada focused on the absence of a quota for combat soldiers as being particularly problematic, citing the need to offer relief to the tens of thousands of reservists who have served hundreds of days in the army since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

However, Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli of Likud gave his support to the proposal, telling the Kan public broadcaster on Wednesday that the goals set by Bismuth are good. He claimed that the IDF “is not able to absorb thousands of soldiers” anyway.

According to Channel 12, Haredi parties don’t believe that Bismuth’s proposal will really be approved for Knesset readings, and anti-draft Haredi activists are still planning to go ahead with a massive rally in Jerusalem on Thursday.

The protest is being organized by representatives of ultra-Orthodox parties Degel HaTorah, Agudat Yisrael (which together make up the United Torah Judaism party), Shas, and other factions, as ultra-Orthodox activists and lawmakers rage against what they describe as a “wave of arrests” of yeshiva students who ignored enlistment orders.

Bismuth’s revised bill was supposed to be presented to lawmakers on Thursday, but instead will be discussed on Monday, the second time the discussion has been delayed.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The Israel Defense Forces has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.