The faction wants IDF inductions centers to be completely free of all female personnel and it also also wants to have its own supervisor at each IDF induction center to make sure the IDF does not try to convince haredi yeshiva students to agree to serve in the IDF by talking to them, offering tours of bases, or through giving yeshiva students brochures or having them watch videos about army life.
Originally published at 11-14 pm CDT 5-21-2014
Haredi Rebel Faction Demands Right To Appoint Haredi “Supervisors” To Monitor IDF Induction Centers
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Haredim by law need to answer their first draft notice and report to an IDF induction center at which they can ask for a service exemption – which will in all cases be granted.
But the non-hasidic Ashkenazi haredi rebel faction led by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach is demanding that the IDF remove all female soldiers and other female personnel from induction centers that could process haredim, Ynet reported.
The faction also wants to have its own supervisor at each IDF induction center to make sure the IDF does not try to convince haredi yeshiva students to agree to serve in the IDF by talking to them, offering tours of bases, or through giving yeshiva students brochures or having them watch videos about army life.
If the IDF refuses to comply with the faction’s demands, their students will continue to refuse to report when called.
And that will force the IDF to arrest those AWOL draft dodgers and process them – which will spark widespread violent haredi riots and civil disobedience, which in turn will cause Auerbach’s power base to grow larger.
Auerbach’s faction reportedly keeps a list of haredi draft dodgers so they can be given legal and other help if they are forcibly drafted.
HaPeles, the haredi daily newspaper which serves as the mouthpiece for Auerbach's faction, sharply criticized haredi rabbis who allow haredi yeshiva students to report to IDF induction centers when summoned in order to apply for service exemptions. Those haredi rabbis are "dealing with the hangmen and executors" of the evil "draft decree" and should be condemned for doing so, HaPeles wrote.
Auerbach and his faction’s leaders believe the IDF will refuse to comply with their demands, especially the demand to exclude all females from any roles or any presence in the induction centers that will process haredi yeshiva students.
That will cause Auerbach’s students and followers not to report when summoned by the IDF, and that in turn will cause arrests and the widespread haredi riots and civil disobedience that strengthen Auerbach’s faction.
Both Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have repeatedly promised haredi leaders that no haredi yeshiva student will be drafted against his will, and Ya’alon has promised that no female soldiers or employees will have any contact with haredi yeshiva students. He has also promised that haredi yeshiva students who report as ordered to get their exemption will not be give IDF promotional literature or be shown pro-IDF videos.
The entire arrangement for exempting haredi yeshiva students from IDF service appears to be illegal and in direct violation of a High Court of Justice ruling, and the idea of excluding all females from IDF induction centers processing haredim is also arguably in violation of High Court rulings, as well.
Netanyahu and Ya’alon, however, have regularly skirted or run roughshod over the High Court and their Likud Party likely needs the support of haredi political parties if it is to retain power after the next election.