The Plesner Committee working to formulate the new law pertaining to IDF conscription is moving ahead to complete its work in time to permit passing the law by August 1, 2012, the deadline set forth for the expiration of the current Tal Law by the High Court of Justice.
Last week, Deputy Attorney General Malkiel Blass sent committee members a letter instructing them to move ahead and set guidelines towards “sharing the burden equally”, to concentrate on drafting the chareidi community since IDF officials are indicating there is a dire need for the immediate drafting of hundreds of chareidim. The directive seems to be steering the committee in the direction of compelling chareidim to enter military or national service without placing the same demands on the Israeli Arabs or other sectors in Israeli society.
Blass feels that the High Court ruling declaring the Tal Law illegal address chareidi draft only, not the Arab community. He adds that if the committee feels it wishes to address the current status of the Arab community regarding military service, the committee will be compelled to also reexamine draft deferments given to Orthodox women.
Kikar Shabbat reports that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was not made aware of the Blass document and when he learned of it, he quite was angered, realizing someone is trying to box the government into a corner regarding relations with the chareidi tzibur. The prime minister apparently ordered his aides to arrange for an urgent meeting to include the attorney general, justice minister, finance minister and other senior officials to address the assistant AG’s directive.
The daily Haaretz reported the IDF Personnel branch has presented the Plesner Committee with a document stating hundreds of chareidi recruits are urgently needed, mostly in the technical support units of the air force’s Shachar program.
While there are 380 chareidi soldiers serving in Shachar, the air force is seeking to increase that number to 1,000 in the coming year.
Kikar adds that chareidi rabbonim and askanim that have been working with the military in a number of frameworks including Shachar are signaling they will not be cooperative when it comes to efforts to compel avreichim to abandon the beis medrash for military service.
To date, the military service was viewed for those chareidim unsuited to sit and learn fulltime, or those who have completed a number of years of yeshiva gvoha and are now ready to leave a full time learning environment and enter the workplace.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
6 Responses
So have an army in which 20% of the soldiers are less than happy about obeying orders from their commanders (note their is no plan to get Hareidi commanders – they made listening to women singing part of the officer training to make sure that doesn’t happen).
The Austro-Hungarians has an army of unwilling conscripts commaned by Germanic officers. That explains a lot of when Otto von Hapsburg was buried a few months ago he was remembered as a member of the European parliament, rather than a emperor.
Ignore mystical stuff about how Torah and Mitsvos are the key to Jewish survival, something proven by centuries of our unpleasant experiences. Even from a “this world”, morale and unit cohesion perspective, mass conscription of Hareidim is probably the best reason for Jews wishing to live in Eretz Yisrael to make sure their Arabic is good (for those planning to flee to America, English is more important).
Akuperma,
I am a little more optimistic. After a period of upheaval and stress all round, perhaps it will all simply make Rav Eliyashev the State’s defacto Commander in Chief. It will be interesting when the army has to OK its orders with the Gadol Hador (A”MVE) or his successor before a huge % of the soldiers will obey them.
#2- That would only happen if the reason for drafting Hareidim is that the Hiloni ruling elites wanted to make the army more Jewish. In fact, they believe that conscription will make the Hareidim give up on what they consider to be unmodern fantatic piety. The Hilonim will never agree a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael.
The zionists want to give Arab citizens of Israel greater deferments than Torah learners of Israel?
No can do.
#3. Of course the ruling elite’s motives are far from making the army more Jewish. But as the Chiloni population dwindles and the traditional, MO and of course the Chareidi populations increase, these latter will be the ones that make up the army and the ruling elite will have to face reality sooner if not later, grudgingly or otherwise (or brought kicking and screaming into the real world). Just like the Jewish Palestininian volunteers
The :”Jewish Palestinian” units are a good analogy. They all took the view that they would join the King’s army to fight the Nazis, while also working to undermine British rule. They fought for the Empire, while fighting to bring down the Empire. They had no impact on the war against Hitler, since while the Brits trusted them to be loyal to the allied cause, they didn’t trust them to obey orders. However they were actually very sucessful in destroying the British Empire (albeit with some help from the Indians and the Irish).
I’m not sure this is fate we want to wish upon the zionists.