Temporary solutions to provide further conscription to the IDF while attempting to advance a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft law are being considered, the office of Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Boaz Bismuth confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
The confirmation came after a Monday Walla report that Bismuth was promoting an “emergency regulation” outline that would serve as a temporary solution for immediate conscription of soldiers to the IDF, which haredim would most likely agree to.
Enforcement sanctions on haredi draft dodgers would be frozen throughout the period of the emergency regulation, which would last for a year, according to the report. The lifted sanctions would include stopping arrests against draft dodgers and continued funding for yeshivas.
“There is an understanding that in the current reality, in the midst of a war, the need for soldiers is urgent and essential, while a permanent law is a long and complex process,” Bismuth’s office stated in response to the report.
“Therefore, temporary solutions adapted to the current period are also being considered, in order to provide an immediate response to security needs, while simultaneously continuing to advance a comprehensive and stable regulation of the conscription law in cooperation and responsibly,” the office said.
Under this emergency arrangement, haredim would be expected to agree to higher enlistment numbers “according to the army’s needs,” though no exact figures have yet been specified, the Walla report said.
The emergency resolution would therefore reportedly serve as an interim measure tailored to the current period, in which the IDF requires additional manpower.
The report also said that the resolution would not be a replacement for long-term legislation toward a conscription law, which would continue in the committee in the coming months.
“The plan that Bismuth is presenting is not a plan for drafting people. It is a plan for dodging the draft,” according to the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.
“This is political trickery designed to continue the lie for another year, at the expense of the soldiers and of national security,” the movement said. “This is a direct continuation of a policy of dangerous discrimination between one kind of blood and another, which serves only the survival of the government.”
Bismuth proposal called 'the embodiment of a draft-dodging scheme”
The Brothers and Sisters in Arms for Democracy organization said Bismuth’s proposal was “The embodiment of a draft-dodging scheme.”
They said that it is “stopping arrests, canceling sanctions, and freezing budget cuts for yeshivas, in exchange for empty promises that carry no real value. This is a cynical use of an emergency regulation not to strengthen the IDF, but to bypass the law and High Court rulings.”
Party leader MK Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) slammed the proposal, stating that “the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is harming Israel’s security. Instead of strengthening the IDF and drafting everyone, he seeks to cancel sanctions and protect draft dodgers.”
The report came ahead of Bismuth’s scheduled meeting with Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday.
It also comes before the second Knesset meeting on the conscription law since he was appointed as head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, set for Wednesday.
Bismuth replaced MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) as the committee’s chairperson after the controversy surrounding the negotiations on the haredi law proposal, which was led by Edelstein. This fallout resulted in the departure of the two haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, from the government in July.