Litzman threatens to topple government if draft bill passes
Law criticized by experts for delays in implementation of financial sanctions, low enlistment targets
United Torah Judaism chairman Ya’acov Litzman threatened to topple the government if the haredi enlistment bill – which includes financial sanctions against the general yeshiva budget – is passed into law, insisting that “we cannot agree to any law that limits those who study Torah in any way.”
Despite this threat on Monday, UTJ and Shas were willing to allow the bill to pass its first Knesset reading, which was expected to pass late Monday night, because its terms are relatively lenient and because the haredi parties hope to make changes to the draft law in committee.
The bill has put the haredi parties in something of a bind because, while they have tremendous difficulties publicly accepting any form of sanctions on yeshivas or yeshiva students, they also appreciate the political ammunition the issue provides the opposition, as well as the looming September deadline for a new law set by the High Court of Justice.
The enlistment bill stipulates annual enlistment targets which increase every year for 10 years, and financial sanctions in the form of steadily increasing reductions to the budget for haredi yeshivas should enlistment targets not be met.
If targets are not met for three years in a row, then the law will be voided and obligatory enlistment would be incumbent on all haredi men.
However, the financial sanctions will not take effect in the first two years of the law’s lifetime, and the law will only be voided if targets are not met in the three years after that.
In addition, the Knesset will have 12 months to legislate a new law should this law be voided, meaning that this clause serves practically no deterrent effect since obligatory conscription would only happen six years from now, leaving plenty of time to alter the legal situation.
Despite the lenient terms of the legislation, Yesh Atid and its chairman MK Yair Lapid – who have campaigned strongly to draft haredi men into the IDF – support the bill, claiming that the clause voiding the bill after failure to meet the targets amounts to the criminal sanctions the party included in its 2014 law.
Speaking at the Yesh Atid Knesset faction meeting, Lapid said the draft law was “a good bill for the State of Israel” and that it was needed “to heal our society, to explain to our children why they serve and others do not,” and said that the party would not engage in politics over this issue.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the law was balanced and that since it was drafted by the Defense Ministry in consultation with the IDF, it meets exactly the army’s requirements.
“This law is correct and balanced. On the one hand we are advancing policies [to increase haredi] participation in the work force, and on the other encouraging an increase in [haredi] participation in army service in accordance with the army’s needs,” said Netanyahu, adding that the law was being advanced “through dialogue and without crass coercion.”
The enlistment bill, which was drawn up by a special committee in the Defense
Ministry, establishes combined targets for IDF service and the haredi civilian service program, which are lower than those set by the law passed in the last government.
The large majority of enlistees will need to go to the IDF to meet the targets. So, for example, the target in 2018 will be for 3,996 haredi men to enlist to either military or civilian service, 3,348 of whom must enlist to the IDF.
The targets then increase by 8% per year for the first three years, 6.5% annually for the next three years, and 5% for the following four years.
Financial sanctions against the general yeshiva budget will not go into effect in the first two years of the law’s life.
Should the actual number of enlistees in the third year fail to reach 95% of the annual target, the budgetary support for yeshivas will be reduced on an ever-increasing scale.
In years three and four, budgetary support for yeshivas will be cut by one percentage point for every percentage point by which the target was missed, meaning that if the target was missed by 5% the budget will be cut by 5%.
In years five and six of the law, every 1% the target is missed by will lead to a 2% budget cut; in years seven and eight this will increase to 3% and in years nine and ten by 4%, meaning that if by 2027 the target is missed by 10% the budget for yeshivas will be cut by 40%.
Should the number of enlistees fall below 85% of the annual targets for three years in a row, the entire law will automatically be voided, and the Knesset will have a year to legislate a new law.
The definition of who is haredi (ultra-Orthodox) will remain the same as was established by the 2014 law, meaning that an individual who studied for at least two years between the age of 14 and 18 in a haredi educational institution will be considered haredi.
Significantly, however, those meeting that definition but who left the haredi community between the ages of 14-18 and subsequently enlist in the IDF will also be included in the haredi enlistment targets, even though they are no longer haredi.
The committee also proposed to increase the pay of regular soldiers, and increased state subsidies for a bachelor’s degree after military service for those who did full IDF service, in order to further incentivize IDF service and increase enlistment rates.
The law has been strongly criticized by experts on haredi enlistment, who have argued that the financial sanctions are relatively soft and that the rate of increase in enlistment targets too low, given the fact that the haredi population is growing by 4.4% a year.
Prof. Yedidya Stern, vice president of the Israel Democracy Institute and someone who has advised the government on haredi enlistment efforts, told The Jerusalem Post when the bill was first published that the two-year delay in imposing the financial sanctions wasted even more time in the goal of increasing haredi enlistment.
And he pointed out that if the law failed in its goal, it would be six years before a new law is drafted, leaving the country in the exact same position it is in today.
Rabbi Uri Regev of the Hiddush religious pluralism organization said the bill was a capitulation to the haredi parties and that “not one yeshiva student who doesn’t want to enlist will have to enlist,” adding that the financial sanctions would be ineffective. •