Last June, in a long overdue verdict, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the exemption haredi yeshiva students have enjoyed from compulsory military service since statehood is legally invalid. Although there are currently about 80,000 ultra-Orthodox males between the ages of 18 to 24 who are eligible for recruitment, the armed forces exercised restraint recently and sent out only 19,000 draft orders.
Yet, judging by media accounts, only 319 have actually enlisted, compounding an injustice that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government tolerates in the interests of preserving his coalition government and his job as prime minister.
The draft dodgers are emboldened by their rabbinic leaders.
A few days ago, Yitzhak Yosef, the former Sephardic chief rabbi, issued what he thought was a threat. In a speech published by a haredi news site, he warned that ultra-Orthodox Jews will be compelled to leave Israel if enlistment orders are implemented.
“If they force us to go to the army, the yeshiva students, if they come to yeshivas and arrest students, then we have no right to exist here and we will go abroad, we will not stay here,” said Yosef, who implausibly claims that yeshiva students perform a service as valuable as soldiers in the field.
Last March, when he was still chief rabbi, Yosef delivered a similar message. In a recording, he said, “If you receive a military enlistment order, tear it up, throw it in the toilet, and flush. Don’t consider it, don’t be afraid.”
Yeshiva students take such advice seriously. As the son of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who was a major figure in the Shas Party, a key member of Netanyahu’s government, Yosef’s words carry weight in the haredi community. Unfortunately, his utter disdain of the Israeli secular state is common in haredi circles.
Two months ago, Dov Lando, a prominent haredi rabbi, instructed yeshiva students to ignore callup orders. Last summer, Rabbi Moshe Maya, a member of Shas’ Council of Torah Sages, issued exactly the same instructions.
Their disdainful attitude to military service infuriates Israeli parents whose sons and daughters are prepared to lay down their lives to protect the country.
More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in battle in the current Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, yet the haredi rabbinical leadership insists that their children should play no role in the country’s defence.
Their assumption that haredi men should be excused from serving the country as soldiers is untenable. When David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, granted yeshivas this exemption in the late 1940s, it applied only to several hundred of the brightest students. But now that their numbers have swollen to bloated levels, the status quo he establish is no longer relevant. Nor is it acceptable at a moment when there are manpower shortages in the armed forces.
To be blunt, the exemption regimen set out by Ben-Gurion nearly eight decades ago is irrevocably out of date, smacks of preferential treatment, and must be revised for the good of the state.
Avigdor Liberman, the former minister of defence and the chairman of the Israel Beytenu Party, understands this imperative, having called on the police to enforce the enlistment order. Under the law, a person guilty of draft evasion during a war is liable to a prison sentence of 15 years.
Yet Netanyahu has issued no arrest orders, thereby emboldening delinquent yeshiva students, undermining the rule of law, and angering the majority of Israelis who dutifully comply with the draft.
Netanyahu’s motives are clear and self-serving.
Shas has threatened to topple his government if even a single draft evader is arrested. With eleven seats in the Knesset, Shas is well positioned to issue threats. If Netanyahu loses Shas’ vital support, his government will fall, forcing him to call a new election, which he may lose, given the electorate’s generally glum view of his performance.
Netanyahu’s political calculus brazenly ignores the Supreme Court solemn order, gives his ultra-Orthodox allies sufficient motivation to make a mockery of the law, and enables yeshiva students to shirk military service.
This unacceptable state of affairs is not only unfair and unjust, but an affront to the legion of Israeli men and women who bear arms to defend the nation from its multitude of enemies near and far.
As for Yosef’s threat that haredi Jews will emigrate should their sons be conscripted into the army, there is no cause for concern. One strongly suspects that the vast majority of secular Israeli Jews will not miss them.