Ultra-Orthodox leaders give haredi factions green light to advance IDF draft bill

The green light was given after the Lithuanian-haredi Degel HaTorah’s two spiritual leaders, Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, passed on the approval instructions to its MKs.

The Degel HaTorah statement added that “after the full bill is submitted, and even before the vote in the Knesset, the proposal will be placed on the table of the great Torah leaders” who will then “make the final decision” regarding how to vote on the law.

“Agudat Yisrael will not support any bill that includes sanctions [on draft-dodgers] or any harm whatsoever to the status and rights of Torah scholars in the Land of Israel, as has been the practice until today,” the faction statement said.

UTJ and Shas, the Sephardi haredi party, both left the government in July over fallout in negotiations on the bill.

With the parties’ resignation, the coalition and opposition stand at a 60-60 seat tie.

Bismuth has been working on a new outline of the bill since he became chairperson of the FADC in July, after the haredi parties left the government.

His office said earlier this month that the Prime Minister’s Office called to halt meetings on advancing the bill because there was no green light to distribute the outline yet.

Critics of Bismuth’s bill and lawmakers have warned that the outline has reverted to previous versions, which failed to enforce ultra-Orthodox conscription to the IDF, in an attempt to appease the haredi parties to return to the government.

Meanwhile, the military has repeatedly warned that it continues to urgently lack manpower.

The past week has seen violence from within the haredi community from extremists who are against a law that would require army enlistment from its members.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel rejected the “green light” from Degel HaTorah on the legislation.

“Any attempt to circumvent the court’s ruling and to approve through legislation the mass evasion of tens of thousands of young ultra-Orthodox men – at a time when the IDF needs more than 12,000 additional soldiers, and reservists are collapsing under the burden – is a serious violation of the rule of law and equality,” the organization said.

Politicians expressed outrage over Degel HaTorah’s green-light announcement as well.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said that a green light from the party’s rabbis indicates that the bill in development allows for draft evasion – failing to enforce haredi conscription.

“If anything definitively confirms that what has been placed before the Knesset is a full-fledged draft-dodging law, it is the rabbis’ approval,” Lapid said.

“They would not have approved it if they didn’t know it was disgraceful draft-dodging,” he said.

MK Benny Gantz (Blue and White) said, “No matter what you tell yourselves, you do not have a green light to continue abandoning our soldiers and Israel’s security.”

“You do not have a green light to enable mass draft-dodging for political survival,” he added.

Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman slammed the government, saying, “Israel’s security is being abandoned by cowards who cling to their seats and to the perks of power.”

A group of organizations representing reservists sent out a letter to set up an urgent meeting with Bismuth, saying that he had failed to meet with them and demanded that he do so before the bill was finalized.

“You promised to meet with us, the serving public, before the law was finalized, but in practice we have been completely excluded from the process,” the group said.

The letter says that “in its current form, the bill abandons the country’s borders, endangers Israel’s security, and perpetuates deep inequality.”