In Bizarre Attempt To Lash Out At High Court’s Ruling Against Haredi Draft Dodgers, Haredi MK Proposes Bill Cutting Funding To Universities

Supporting haredi MKs are Zionist Orthodox MKs from the HaBayit HaYehudi Party, for example, Yoni Chetboun. “The value of Torah study is just as important as the value of sharing in national service,” Chetboun said, adding that the High Court’s ruling was “irresponsible and unnecessary.”

Yoni Chetboun

In Bizarre Attempt To Lash Out At High Court’s Ruling Against Haredi Draft Dodgers, Haredi MK Proposes Bill Cutting Funding To Universities
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

In what many certainly view as a bizarre attempt to divert attention from the fact that almost no haredim serve in the IDF, MK Eli Yishai of the Sefardi haredi Shas Party has proposed a new bill to withhold government funding from colleges and universities where the percentage of students who do not serve in the IDF is greater than 20%, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Yishai introduced the new bill in response to the High Court of Justice which on on Tuesday ruled that the government can not give stipends to haredi yeshiva students who should have been drafted but were illegally exempted by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.

The bill reportedly has no credible chance of passing.

Meanwhile, haredi politicians continued to lash out at the High Court.

MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party reportedly said the High Court was behaving like a “bully in the market.” Gafni also reportedly said that haredi leadership would “wage a world war against [the High Court] until it becomes illegitimate.…This is an institution which represents the secular elite alone.”

Zionist Orthodox MKs from the HaBayit HaYehudi Party Party also lashed out at the High Court.

“The value of Torah study is just as important as the value of sharing in national service,” MK Yoni Chetboun of HaBayit HaYehudi said, adding that the High Court’s ruling was “irresponsible and unnecessary.”

For two years, politicians from the ruling Likud Party, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon have been thwarting passage of a new draft bill that, in order to meet legal muster, must draft haredi yeshiva students.

In the meantime, Ya’alon illegally exempted haredi yeshiva students from the draft, flaunting a previous High Court of Justice ruling.

Ya’alon and Netanyahu want any new draft bill to be essentially toothless, meaning haredim could choose to dodge the draft and would not be punished for doing so.

While it is unlikely a bill like that would pass constitutional muster, it could take months or even years of legal maneuvering before the High Court would be able to rule against it.

HaBayit HaYehudi has sided with its coalition partner Likud on the issue of penalties for haredi draft dodgers because right wing Zionist Orthodox rabbis oppose them. These rabbis are essentially haredim in every way, except for their open support of Zionism.

But Yesh Atid, the reformist party that is the second largest party in Knesset and which is also part of Netanyahu’s coalition is demanding criminal penalties for haredim who dodge the draft, and has threatened to walk out of the coalition if Likud fails to put those penalties in the new draft bill.

Comments

[Jeff]

>> Gafni also reportedly said that haredi leadership would “wage a world war against [the High Court] until it becomes illegitimate... .”

Yeah, I'd like to see that - but do they have enough rocks, dirty diapers and burning garbage cans to arm all of their troops?

Meanwhile, with Israel's free health care, can't they get someone to treat Gafni's obvious mental illness?

[ah-pee-chorus]

the charedi MK's i expected, but the BHY guy surprised me. bennett should be ashamed.

[dh]

"Meanwhile, with Israel's free health care, can't they get someone to treat Gafni's obvious mental illness?"

Posted by: Jeff | February 05, 2014 at 06:48 PM

There aren't many good effective psychotropic medications and there is nothing in the pipeline. You will have to continue to live with it.

[plus.google.com/105365650738687784925]

Sure they could extend this to universities. Simply set up 2 tuition levels - a lower one for those who did army service and a higher one for those who didn't without a valid health reason.