MK (Kadima) Shaul Mofaz on Monday called for amending the Tal Law during a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee.
Mofaz, who chairs the committee, was overseeing a special session addressing chareidim and military service. IDF Chief of Personnel Branch Major-General Orna Barvibai, who attended the special session, explained that today, one of four eligible inductees does not enter the military and due to current security realities, all citizens must do “substantial service”.
Mofaz, a former defense minister and IDF chief of staff, is calling to amend the Tal Law which permits avreichim to postpone or avoid military service entirely. The law, passed a decade ago, is viewed as problematic by Mofaz, who agrees with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, both stating the law has not resulted in a sufficient change in the number of chareidim in the armed forces, today about 3,000 after a decade.
Mofaz told committee members that evading military service has alarmingly become the “acceptable norm” in Israel and this cannot be viewed as acceptable. Mofaz warns “in a few years, it will be irreparable”, referring to the trend in which so many are permitted to avoid military service.
Barvibai stated the military views the enlistment of a growing number of chareidim as a positive trend, one that is essential, adding the military will continue doing its utmost to accommodate chareidim in special tailor-made programs designed to accommodate their lifestyles.
Regarding calls for military or national service, MK Yaakov Katz stated that there must be an across-the-board regulation, and it is not acceptable that in certain population sectors draft eligible persons are automatically inducted into the IDF while in other sectors, one has the option of a national service alternative to military service.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
Does this mean that they are going to conscript the Israeli Druzim? Because they are exempt – not like avreichim and yeshiva bochurim, who have to go back every 6 months or so and prove they are still learning in order to get their deferment. Israeli Druzim are exempt completely.
As far as I know, unless this has changed, star athletes of draft age are also given a waiver.
The exclusive focus on charedim makes this issue sound a lot more political than it does military.