Government committee on equalizing sharing of
burden approves clauses of new bill, including for criminal sanctions •
Seventy percent of ultra-Orthodox students will serve in military or
national service in three years, says Finance Minister Yair Lapid.
The Shaked committee members
discuss the equal burden bill on Wednesday night
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Photo credit: Contact  |
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After weeks of talks and negotiations, the
committee presiding over equalizing the military burden, headed by MK
Ayelet Shaked, approved criminal sanctions for draft dodgers and other
changes to take effect in 2017.
"The middle class is fed up with carrying the
ultra-Orthodox population on its back," Finance Minister and Yesh Atid
Chairman Yair Lapid said at a Tel Aviv press conference Thursday. He
said the new draft law amends a social and historic distortion that has
been continuing for 65 years, and that starting in March thousands of
young men will receive induction orders.
"In three years, 70 percent of ultra-Orthodox
students obligated to enlist in the military will serve in the army or
national service," Lapid said.
Criminal sanctions is the main and most
controversial clause in the new draft law, which has been the subject of
many government debates since the expiration of the Tal Law in 2012.
MK Moti Yogev (Habayit Hayehudi) rejected the
decision on criminal sanctions, and his appeal will be discussed next
week. Fellow party member Shaked abstained from the vote Wednesday
night. Criminal sanctions were approved after Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu settled the dispute between Finance Minister Lapid and Habayit
Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett.
Another main clause approved Wednesday was
mandatory service, essentially obligating every yeshiva student to
report for military service, just like secular men. The law states that
if enrollment targets are not met, criminal sanctions against draft
dodgers (including arrests and imprisonment) will go into effect within a
six-month period.
Obligatory army service has been the flagship issue for the Yesh Atid party.
"The principle of mandatory service for all
will be a guideline for this new law," said Yaakov Peri, who headed the
committee originally in charge of drafting the conscription law. "For
the first time since the establishment of the state the sentence for a
haredi draft-dodger will be the same as a secular man's, and the
obligation to serve will apply also to ultra-Orthodox students. The
military and national service, along with students leaving the 'yeshiva
prison,' are a bridge to integrating the ultra-Orthodox community in the
workforce."
Beginning in July 2017, yeshiva students will
be legally obligated to serve in the army. In the interim they will be
gradually drafted into military and national service, starting with
3,800 in 2015, 4,500 in 2016, and 5,200 in 2017. According to the
proposal, yeshivas will be able to decide which of their students to
send to the military, and face sanctions if they do not meet the draft
quotas. The bill also gives the defense minister a mandate to defer
enrollment until the age of 21, or in some cases 26, and to grant
exemptions.
A few clauses that have not yet been decided
on are how many ultra-Orthodox men will enroll annually and whether
women's military service should be to extended from 24 to 28 months.
"The reality of 65 years will change in a few more votes," Shaked said.
Criticizing the decision, committee member MK
Omer Bar-Lev (Labor) said: "I am appalled to see how this coalition of
vested interests is navigating this ship without direction."
Once the final bill is approved by the
committee (expected next week), it will be sent to the Knesset plenum
for second and third readings.
Shaked angered several committee members
Wednesday morning when she "stole" a vote on extending the hesder
yeshiva service of Modern Orthodox youth from 16 to 17 months by
recalling a meeting at 10 a.m. after it had been agreed that the
committee would reconvene in the afternoon.
Ultra-Orthodox MKs Ariel Atias (Shas) and Meir
Porush (United Torah Judaism) did not attend the hearings or the votes
in protest over Habayit Hayehudi's agreement to impose criminal
sanctions and failure to insist that financial sanctions would suffice.
The ultra-Orthodox community is planning a
mass protest over the planned sanctions. Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib
Shteinman, a prominent leader in the haredi world, expressed outrage at
the decision, and it appears that next week, for the first time in
history, the Council of Torah Sages (the ultimate authority in the Shas
party) will meet with Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah.
"The public is furious and we will hold a million-man protest," a United Torah Judaism party official said on Wednesday.
Atias said: "Yair Lapid made a farce out of
this law. There were manipulations in the committee and it's best the
public doesn't know everything."
The Forum for Draft Equality also responded to
the decision: "This is not the committee for equalizing the burden, but
the committee for equalizing exemptions."
Meanwhile, a survey by the IDF's Center for Behavioral
Studies published in Bamahane, the IDF weekly newspaper, showed that
over 70 percent of pre-army youth support equal length military service
for men and women. Of the 1,000 17- to 18-year-olds questioned, 70% of
women and 73% of men said they "strongly agreed" that the term of
military service should be the same for both sexes. Nineteen percent of
men and 16% of women said they "agreed somewhat," while 11% of both men
and women said they "mostly disagreed."
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