The current Government of Israel led by Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu is about to royally screw the non-haredi population of Israel for one reason and one reason only: to stay in power.
Haredi Draft To Be Postponed, Enforcement Weakened – Secular Israel To Be Forced To Carry The Weight Alone
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Lets put this bluntly. The current Government of Israel led by Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu is about to royally screw the non-haredi population of Israel for one reason and one reason only: to stay in power.
Without the support of haredi parties, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would likely have to form a government with the left-leaning opposition. If not, it would likely fall from power altogether. So Netanyahu has spent the better part of two years, from the end of his previous government formed with a strong centrist bloc and through the first months of his new government formed with haredim, appeasing haredi politicians and top rabbis.
The pinnacle of that appeasement was reached last night, Arutz Sheva reported based on a Channel 2 News report, when a new proposed military draft law was circulated late last night among senior government members. That proposed bill abolishes the draft reforms passed in the previous government and essentially allows haredim to legally dodge the draft.
According to Arutz Sheva, here’s what the bill does:
• Pushes back the end of the current trial period of drafting a small number of haredim until 2017.
• Full enforcement of the haredi draft won’t start until 2020.
• But when it does, it won’t actually be full enforcement. Instead, from 2020-2023 the haredi community will be expected to follow the draft law but there will be no criminal penalties if it fails to fully comply.
• The proposed draft bill still has a target of 15,000 haredim drafted by 2020, but the definition of who is haredi has been drawn so broadly and in a way that allows haredim to count as haredi draftees ba’al teshuvas, traditional Sefardim who attended Shas Party schools but who are not themselves Orthodox, ex-haredim and haredi youth expelled from haredi yeshivas due to everything from having learning disabilities or ADHD to breaking community norms – meaning the vast majority of the haredi quota can and likely will be filled by non-haredim.
The new proposed draft law was primarily crafted by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked from the right-wing Zionist Orthodox HaBayit HaYehudi Party and by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon of Netanyahu’s Likud Party. Ya’alon has already for some time been illegally granting draft exemptions or postponements any haredi yeshiva student who asks for one.
Secular, Conservative, Reform and Zionist Orthodox students do not have any available blanket exemptions from military service and are almost never granted specific exemptions when requested.
Ya’alon and Shaked reportedly claim the strong haredi opposition to the existing draft law, which has frequently been violent, might kill what they claim was the preexisting incremental but steady increase of “haredim” choosing to enlist. That preexisting incremental but steady increase "occurred anyway without the destructive threat of [mandatory] conscription dangling over their heads,” the proposed bill claims.
But those purported increases are only significant if ex-haredim, ba’al teshuvas and others are counted as haredi – a fact Netanyahu and his colleagues have repeatedly tried to hide.