National Outcry
Reactions to the Draft Exemption Law
It’s been over two years of war, with nearly a thousand soldiers killed, over twenty thousand injured, a new realization that Israel needs a much larger army than previously assumed, a crushing burden on reservists that has destroyed careers and health and families, announcements that reserve duty will permanently go up to a minimum of over two months annually, and still a desperate IDF manpower shortage. Meanwhile, there are 80,000 charedim of draft age who are either learning in yeshiva, working, or just hanging around the streets. In response, today, the Likud’s Boaz Bismuth released the final draft of his proposal for a charedi “Draft Law.”
This farce of a proposal is far more accurately called a “Draft Exemption Law.” Among its absurdities are that its target goals are absolutely minimal, it allows for only 75% of these already minimal targets to be met without incurring penalties (which makes the target number meaningless), it accepts minimal non-army volunteering towards its numbers, it does not require any charedim to serve in the desperately needed combat roles, it broadens the definition of charedi to include people who are not charedi, it delays sanctions for non-compliance by a year and a half, it has charedim sitting on the committees for exemptions and sanctions, it cancels the last two years of call-up orders retroactively, etc., etc.
As a law to solve the IDF manpower crisis by bringing in a significant number of the 80,000 charedi draft-dodgers, relieve the burden on everyone else, and properly protect the lives of everyone in the country, it’s a sick joke. But, of course, that’s not the goal of the Likud’s law. Its goal is to legalize an exemption for charedim from army service, release billions of shekels of funding to them, and thereby have them rejoin the coalition. Its purpose is to bring charedim into the government, not into the army.
Supporters of the law claim that there is no better way to draft charedim and/or that it’s impossible to draft them anyway. That is, of course, nonsense. There is another very simple approach which has simply never been tried: cutting off all the considerable financial benefits that charedim currently receive, and imposing various sanctions such as cancelling driving licenses and trips abroad.
To be sure, most of the 80,000 charedim avoiding army duty are so utterly unsuitable and opposed to it that even removing financial benefits and imposing sanctions would not bring them to enlist. But it’s not crucial to get all 80,000; it’s only about 20,000 that are crucial, and there are enough “modern” and/or desperate charedim of that number who would enlist if there was actually real pressure to do so. As for the other 60,000, even if they are not enlisting, at least there would be pressure for them to work for a living, and the tens of billions of shekels that are sent to them annually for enabling their freeloading lifestyle could be used for better purposes.
The good news is that there are many, many voices protesting this farce of a law proposal. And this is not just in those parts of the secular population that did not vote for the current government. Many people in the dati-leumi community are also outraged, and are saying so very loudly, as are some Likud supporters. Particularly significant was an extremely powerful letter put out by the parents and widows of numerous fallen soldiers, which is appearing in much of the national press:
The outcry is having an effect. Some government MKs have said that they will not support a law that does not actually solve the manpower crisis. With the government holding such a narrow majority, there are good reasons to be hopeful that this law will not pass.
There’s an important lesson here. The politicians’ response to the outcry disproves a frequent criticism that I receive, that there is no point to “bashing” charedim as it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Today’s news shows that it does. Campaigning on a topic translates to pressure on politicians, which leads to very significant practical ramifications.
And so, if you agree that it’s important to relieve the crushing burden on non-charedi Israelis, and for Israel to have the miliary and economic strength that it needs to survive against all those who seek to destroy it, please help amplify this campaign! Pass these posts on to others, via email or WhatsApp or social media. The above letter from the bereaved families is particularly powerful to spread. Do it now!