Right-wing MK urges draft-dodging to protest ‘feminist agenda’ of IDF
Outcry as Bezalel Smotrich proposes religious soldiers delay enlistment to pressure army into reversing moves to integrate mixed-gender units
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
Right-wing firebrand lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich called on rabbis and teachers to delay their students’ enlistment into the army to protest what he labeled the “radical feminist” agenda which he said was leading to more mixed gender activities in the armed forces, and was putting “equality above victory.”
Smotrich, writing in the religious weekly B’Sheva, suggested that religious students continue their studies for a few more months and refuse to enlist on the date set by the army.
There are three enlistment dates each year, when most soldiers enter the army, in August, November and March. Smotrich called for rabbis to instruct their students to skip their enlistment date and instead join the army at the next date, a few months later.
Smotrich was apparently incensed by moves within the army to put women in combat roles and use mixed-gender units.
It was not immediately clear if the lawmaker, whose party supports IDF enlistment, was advocating for students to illegally dodge their draft dates or simply apply for deferrals.
He said that the religious community has not fought back against the “feminist agenda” being imposed on the army, but by delaying enlistment the army will be forced to choose between motivated, religious soldiers, and the political correctness of the feminist lobby.
He described his plan as an act of love meant to “save” the army “from the extreme post-modernist fingernails that have grasped hold of it… using pretty words about equality and accepting the other.”
The column by Smotrich quickly drew harsh condemnation, including from Jewish Home party leader and Education Minister Naftali Bennett. “No group has the right to ‘teach the IDF’ how to behave and certainly not to refuse the draft,” Bennett said, according to Channel 10 news.
Likud lawmaker Yehudah Glick, a rabbi, tweeted a call for all “youth, religious and secular, to continue to enlist in the army in great numbers” and not to listen to the “stupid ideas of my (sweet) friend” Smotrich.
He added that he expected the army to be “attentive” to what the public was saying, referring to some who have raised concerns over mixed-gender units.
Likud MK Avi Dichter, head of Knesset Defense Committee, harshly attacked Smotrich for his article, saying the IDF needed to be saved from the lawmaker.
Smotrich’s column waded into an ongoing battle over the role of women in the military, which became a hot-button issue after a recording surfaced earlier this month in which Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, the head of a pre-army academy excoriated women who serve in the army as “crazy” and “no longer Jewish.”
The IDF prides itself for being on the forefront of integrating women, gays, the disabled and others in the past seen as unfit to serve into a wide variety of roles, include fighting units.
Unlike the ultra-Orthodox community, which enjoys exemption from army service, the national religious community views the draft as a key plank of its ideology and in recent years, has been filling the ranks of combat units and the officer corps, but leading to a clash with the IDF’s traditionally liberal mores.
While many rejected Levinstein’s remarks, and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman threatened to cut off the school if he does not resign, some in the national religious community have voiced concern over how the army deals with concern from religious soldiers who keep to strict standards regarding gender separation.
In his article, Smotrich said the army had to learn that it could no longer “trample” on the willingness of national religious to enlist.
