T. Belman. It is untenable that the Haredi avoid the draft and the secular are forced to serve. They must be equal before the law. The Haredi argue that they are defending Israel by studying Torah. I don’t accept this justification. Like every citizen, they must serve in the IDF.
A meeting with the Defense Minister has produced understandings regarding the Draft Law for the haredi community.
Israel National News Aug 17, 2023,
Senior haredi officials were quoted Thursday as saying that there is internalization among haredi political leaders that, amid the public protests against the judicial reform, it will not be possible to approve a conscription law as stipulated in the coalition agreement.
According to a report on the haredi website Kikar Hashabbat, the haredi internalization took shape last week after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with senior members of the haredi parties and explained to them that the rift in Israeli society prevents the promotion of a law in the spirit that the haredim demand.
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- Haredi parties demand legislation on draft law
- Report: Government planning temporary haredi draft law
During the meeting, Minister Gallant cited the warnings of senior officials of the General Staff and the IDF Personnel Division who warn against the secular reluctance of parents who will refuse to send their sons and daughters to the army as long as the government enacts a conscription law in the spirit proposed currently.<
“We listened to Galant, we didn’t agree, but we understood that there was a problem. Gallant is not [Yisrael Beytenu chair MK Avigdor] Liberman, he does not act with hostility to the haredim,” a haredi official was quoted as saying.
According to the indications, the haredi parties will advance a law based on the outline agreed upon in the coalition agreements in the Netanyahu-Gantz unity government.
Among the sections of the law, it will include recruitment targets and economic sanctions alongside targets for haredim entering the job market.
Sounds like the IDF was spraying manure in its reports about Haredi enlistment.
Full article at https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-it-fudged-ultra-orthodox-enlistment-tallies-for-years/
full article at https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-admits-it-fudged-ultra-orthodox-enlistment-tallies-for-years/
I don’t interpret the statements of Israeli recruiters as “admissions that they had lied,”Rather they said they disagreed with the official figures, which is different,
The fact is that there is a haredi brigade -sized unit with about 3,000 soldiers–the size of a brigade or a small division. It would be difficult for even the most “creative”army officers to invent the existence of this brigade, Most likely, these recruiters and other “dissident” IDF officers who deny the existence of haredim in the armed forces share the prejudices of most secular ,non-religious Israelis against the haredim, which leads them to deny the deonstrable reality that some haredim are performing their military service.
I guess every people in the world need some sort of scapegoat for their problems, some “other” that they consider permissable to hate. For most of the world, this people are the Jews. For non=religious Jews inIsrael, the Poles and the haredimare the preferred subjects.
@Adam the IDF recruiters admitted they lied about the Haredi recruit numbers to take off the heat. The 3000 number was bull!
@ADAM
You are doing great work. Please continue your investigation and put your findings in an article. I will post it and get INN to also post it. Find a copy of the Draft Law that Gantz agreed to.
While th UTG demanded the passage of a draft exemption law, the mainstream Israeli press has underreported or buried the fact that the Shas party, also considered a haredi party, opposed this demand by the UTJ from the beginning. Shas’s refusal to support the demand for a change in the draft law before the judicial reforms were enacted meant this demand was dead in the water from the beginning.
Shas actually proposed that all haredi males of draftable be called up for their draft physical, and that all who passed should enter the military. They even promised that their seminaries would enforce this on their students. But the mainstream Israeli press buried the story, since it did not match up with the mainstream narrative of haredis as draft-dodging, bloodsucking parasites. I had to read the English language editions of the haredi press to find this out.
By the way-the IDF recently announced that 3,000 haredim volunteer for military service and are accepted for military service every year for several years running now. However, both the IDF press office and the Israeli press quibble about whether these figures are accurate. The official definition of a haredi recruit by the IDF is any mail who was educated in exclusively in haredi schools up to the age of 14. However, some senior IDF officers questioned the accuracy of the official figures of their own army, and the Israeli press used these criticisms to dismiss the official figures as worthlss. Both journalists and some IDF officers whom the quoted said that these recruits were “really” haredim, becase they had “left the haredi community” and were no longer strictly observant of haredi religious customs. However, this eseems doubtful to me, since many haredi soldiers returned to their homes in Bnei Brak or wherever, wearing their IDF uniforms. Many also attempted to pray in their home synogogues where they their families had always prayed. Very often when they appeared on the streets in their home towns they were pelted with stones by “reactionaries” and were driven out of their home synagogues, or were denied entrance by security guards. Someimes the returning haredi soldiers called the police for protection. The police actually have plainclothes officers patroling some haredi communities to protect the returning haredi soldiers from harassment. Obviously, not all IDF soldiers who were educated in haredi schools “up to the age of 14” have abandoned their faith The attitudes of younger haredim towards the IDF are changing, even though this may didtress many of their elders. It is time that the mainstream Israeli press acknowledge this.
Is it fair for Arabs to receive every benefit and be eligible for every opportunity that Jews are but not have to pay property taxes or do some kind of national service? Is it fair that Jews are discriminated against on the Temple Mount? As long as Arabs have more rights than Jews in the Jewish state, all this concern with “equality” and “fairness” makes me yawn.