Katz to FADC: My bill will bring tens of thousands of haredim into IDF - Yonah Jeremy Bob

 

​ by Yonah Jeremy Bob

Katz said that over seven years, his bill would succeed at integrating tens of thousands of haredim into the military. Opposition MKs accused him of ignoring the IDF's needs.

 

Defense Minister Israel Katz and MK Yuli Edelstein at the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, January 14, 2025.

(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

Defense Minister Israel Katz presented his proposal on Tuesday to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) to confront the issue of haredim serving in the IDF.

Katz said that over seven years, his bill would succeed at integrating tens of thousands of haredim into the military.

Opposition MKs Merav Cohen (Yesh Atid), Sharon Nir (Yisrael Beytenu), Efrat Raiten (Democrats), and Merav Michaeli (Democrats) called out that Katz was ignoring the numbers that the IDF itself said it needed and could absorb.

The defense minister said that in the first year of the law, the number of haredim serving in the IDF per year would jump to 4,800 in 2025, while it would jump to 5,700 for 2026, and then it would gradually eventually reach 50% of those haredim eligible by 2032, the seventh year of the bill.

Nir, Raiten, and Michaeli were referring to the IDF, saying that within around two years, they could integrate all eligible haredim.

Police officers in Bnei Brak, Israel use water cannons as haredi Orthodox Jewish men block a main highway to protest efforts to allow the state to draft Haredi yeshiva students into military service, June 2, 2024. (credit: Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Introducing sanctions

Next, Katz said that contrary to reports which say his bill is weak on enforcement, his bill would include institutional financial sanctions both on any haredi yeshivot not meeting their quota for IDF service as well as personal financial sanctions against haredim who are issued draft orders and yet are not serving.

He added that the personal financial sanctions would also cancel subsidies for preschool for haredim, a legal question that is currently in dispute and waiting for either the High Court of Justice or the government to resolve, given that the court gave a February deadline for freezing such funding.

Throughout Katz's presentation, opposition MKS and family members of hostages called out and interrupted, accusing him of deserting the hostages and those soldiers who had died during the war while the haredim had not served.  

FADC Chairman Yuli Edelstein eventually kicked Cohen out of the room for successive interruptions.

There were also questions about how much sanctions would actually be enforced or whether the defense minister would have discretion not to impose them, something which could allow haredi political pressure to influence the process.

Further, to date, the IDF has rarely arrested haredim who avoid their draft the way that it arrests other sectors who avoid their draft, and it was unclear if and how this enforcement would get more serious.

Addressing criticism that he had sidelined Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara in the process of preparing the bill – given that Baharav-Miara has opposed most of the coalition’s plans as insufficient integration of haredim – Katz said that his ideas had not yet been crystalized in a bill sufficiently to need a review by the attorney-general.

However, in parallel to the general review process, Katz was recently accused of telling the IDF and Attorney-General to withhold from the High Court of Justice that the military believes it can absorb all necessary haredim by the end of 2024.

In real-time, Katz had rejected the charge without an explanation, but on Tuesday, the defense minister seemed to explain his position in a more detailed manner.

He told the FADC that he believed there were times when the IDF said it could “draft” or summon a large number of haredim without the actual practical ability to have enough special trainers and facilities ready to absorb them into specific service duties.

In addition, Katz specified that the age for an exemption would be age 26.

Aspects of the bill will be supervised by a committee that includes the defense minister, a former defense minister, the head of IDF human resources, the government’s cabinet secretary, and other relevant senior officials.

Edelstein noted that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi is expected to present his position on the issue at the FADC on an unspecified day next week.

Yonah Jeremy Bob

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-837465

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