A Ynet investigative report published on Sunday revealed that almost a third of IDF candidates receive exemptions every year from serving in the army. The high number of exemptions is mainly due to a dramatic rise in exemptions for mental health reasons.
The report added that apart from the rising number of exemptions, an average of another 15% of recruits drop out during their service, which means that close to half of all young Israelis are not serving or completing army service.
IDF exemptions for mental health reasons have been rising dramatically for years, from 4.5% five years ago to an expected 8.3% in 2020, which means that thousands of potential IDF soldiers, most of whom don’t actually have mental health issues, are not drafted into the IDF.
Senior officials in the IDF Manpower Directorate believe that the phenomenon is not a result of a “sudden rise” in mental health issues but is essentially a result of decreased motivation to serve in the IDF.
Another factor contributing to the high percentage of mental health exemptions is the fact that a criminal investigation is opened into every case of an IDF soldier committing suicide, including an investigation of the mental health officer who approved the soldier for service. Due to the fear of being implicated in these criminal investigations, many mental health officers tend to be very lenient in approving mental health exemptions.
A little less than two weeks ago, Major-General Moti Almoz, head of the IDF Manpower Directorate, sent a letter to all mental health officers in the recruiting office entitled “Steps to Halt the Rise in Mental Health Exemptions.”
Almoz also held an urgent meeting last week to discuss ways to decrease mental health exemptions. One step he took was to promise the mental health officers to back their decisions on refusing mental health exemptions to those who didn’t clearly need it.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Abolish the draft! There is absolutely no military reason for it. It causes tremendous social, economic and political damage to Israel. Billions of Shekels are wasted that could be better spent on education or social services.
As a US citizen who was of draft age during the Vietnam war and knew several mental health professionals, I can say with a high degree of reliability that a lot of mental health exemptions were bunk. (I weasled out of the draft more honorably, by drawing a high number in the draft lottery, so I did not have to fall back on a mental health bunko exemption.) I am sure that the rise in exemptions in Israel is also largely bunk.
That leaves us with the hard question: Why are so many citizens of a nation so dependent on its military for its very existence unwilling to do their duty? Sure, the US would help at the present time if Israel were under serious attack, but if the US public ever thinks that Israelis are a bunch of draft dodgers, US military support could evaporate.
To Aryeh Zebra: What are you smoking and wear can I get some? Israel needs an army, navy and air force for its very existence. To have an IDF of the current size and capability without a draft would require an all-volunteer IDF, which would be very, very, very expensive – so expensive I don’t think Israel’s taxpayers could afford it. The cash requirements of the US volunteer military services are much higher than the cost of a draft army, and I am sure that Israel would see a similar increase in cost. And Israel is not protected from its enemies by two enormous oceans.
Unlike “huju”, I had a very low (i.e. bad) number in the 1971 draft lottery. At my 3rd physical (having failed at faking allergies, etc.), I decided to try for a psych deferment. The “shrink” seemed to be 99% sure that I was making up the whole thing on the spot, but boruch Hashem he let me off anyhow — that was unquestionably the only honorable course available to both of us.
Now, 48 years later, as a Chareidi grandfather living in Yerushalayim, I state with total sincerity that the only dishonorable and offensive element in the article is Mr. Huju’s assertion that my country is “so dependent on its military for its very existence”. That is absolute k’fira, and is true only of our enemies.
To say that without the army we wouldn’t exist, that is 100% kefira. Please study and go over the 13 Hermeneutical Principles of Judaism. For an example, if a person doesn’t have enough food, and he worries about what to eat the next day, he is considered a kofer.