Gov’t clashes on Thursday’s haredi draft due date
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to present to the cabinet a new plan for ultra-Orthodox (haredi) conscription into the IDF, just one day ahead of a May 16 deadline for the state to outline its plans to the High Court of Justice ahead of an important hearing on June 2, Minister-without-portfolio MK Benny Gantz revealed in a video statement on Saturday evening.
According to a report by KAN, the prime minister intends to hold a preliminary vote in the cabinet on Wednesday in order to include the plan in the legal filing to the High Court, so that the court refrain from forcing the government to begin drafting all haredi men of military age.
Negotiations have been ongoing in recent weeks between Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs and representatives of Israel’s haredi parties in an attempt to reach a compromise, which could then be presented to the government and eventually pass as legislation in the Knesset. However, the sides have yet to announce that such a compromise has been reached.
Haredi men have enjoyed a legal exemption from IDF service since Israel’s founding. However, the most recent law enabling the exemption was ruled unconstitutional in 2017, and after many delays, officially expired on July 1, 2023. The government gave itself an adjustment period to come up with a new plan, but that period ended on March 31, and the state is required by law to begin drafting some 60,000 haredi men of military age into the IDF.
The long-awaited conscription plan could trigger a political crisis. On one hand, Gantz in his Saturday video statement repeated his position that he would not support a bill that will continue to grant sweeping exemptions to haredi men, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced in March that he would not support a plan that did not have Gantz’s backing. On the other hand, the haredi parties, who are key partners in Netanyahu’s coalition, have insisted that haredi men continue to receive the option to study in yeshivot full time, and also have argued that the IDF does not enable haredim who do serve to maintain their lifestyle. The departure of either Gantz’s National Unity Party or the two haredi parties (United Torah Judaism and Shas) would likely lead to political instability and even the government’s collapse.
Added to this is the ongoing legal case against the government’s delay in drafting haredi men, and against financial support for military-age students in yeshivot. The High Court on March 28 issued a temporary order to halt the financial support and acknowledging that the state was required by law to draft haredim. The hearing on June 2, which will be heard in front of an expanded nine-member bench, will debate whether or not to turn the temporary order into a permanent one.
Israel Hayom reported on Saturday evening that the government’s plan includes a gradual rise over 10 years of a minimum amount of haredi draftees per year, with the goal being to eventually draft approximately half of eligible draftees every year (some 6,000 – 7,000 per year, out of some 13,000 students per year). These details could not be independently verified.
Gantz claimed in Saturday’s video that the prime minister was “acting in order to bring a plan that does not promote fair service in the state, harm the IDF draft and Israeli security and resilience.” Gantz also criticized the timing of the prime minister’s intention to present the plan just two days after Remembrance Day, and accused Netanyahu of “taking apart Israeli society during wartime for political gain.”
Fuchs, who is facilitating the negotiations between the involved parties, refuted Gantz’s claim. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he accused Gantz of acting divisively and of criticizing a plan that has yet to be presented in full.
It appeared that Gantz’s criticism of Netanyahu’s bill addressing the crisis of haredi exemption/integration into the IDF was less based on having thoroughly reviewed the prime minister’s latest proposal, as much as the fact that Netanyahu has consistently avoided dialogue on the issue with Gantz along the lines of a major reform.
Comments by Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary also indicated that the new bill could draw out any solution over a decade, a time period usually viewed as making a reform irrelevant in political terms since there will be additional elections before anything serious would change.
In contrast to Gantz, Gallant has fallen silent in recent days.
His position is that he tried in the recent past to shoot down Netanyahu’s bill which was trying to repackage an ongoing exemption in practice as a real reform of integrating Haredim into the IDF, but that at this point he cannot single-handedly stop it.
Furthermore, if expectations are rising for Gantz to quit the government over the issue of haredim serving in the IDF, Gallant has made it clear that even if he opposes Netanyahu’s bill, he will not quit.
The defense minister believes that his value as the “adult in the room” in the current government in which he views Netanyahu as often being pushed around by National Security Minister Itamar BenGvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who are less experienced in world affairs, is more important than any statement he might make by resigning, given that the government would still continue.
It is also still always possible that four more Likud members could join Gallant to block passage of the bill, but there are no signs that the defense minister has succeeded in gathering such numbers.