JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In the wake of the looming deadline for submitting a response to High Court petitions demanding conscription of yeshiva students, the government requested late Wednesday night a 12-hour delay to formulate its response, according to a Times of Israel report.
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The request came minutes after a bombshell response had been issued by the Attorney General’s Office in which it told the court that from Monday morning, April 1, the state would be obligated to begin conscripting Haredi yeshiva students, as there would no longer be any legal framework to avoid such a step.
The government was supposed to have drafted an outline proposal for a law that would lead to an increase in charedi enlistment and pass it as a government resolution by Wednesday in response to the petitions. However the coalition has yet to reach a consensus over the issue, as charedi parties rejected any form of quotas for conscription in the legislation. Negotiations have continued, and the government hopes to have some form of resolution by 2 PM Thursday.
Because the government has so far failed to formulate a substantive proposal, the attorney general’s initial response to the court noted that not only was cabinet Resolution 682 allowing the state not to draft charedi men about to expire, but that the government had not even stood by its commitment to present the court substantive proposals for tackling the issue.
“From the outset, government Resolution 682 was based on the premise of promoting legislation. Therefore, with the expiration of the resolution and in the absence of an alternative framework, as of April 1, 2024, no source of authority will exist that allows for the continued blanket avoidance of drafting yeshiva students,” wrote the Attorney General’s Office in its draft response to the court.
“In such circumstances, all authorized state officials will be legally obligated to act on conscription procedures for yeshiva students starting on April 1, 2024.”
The subsequent request for the half-day extension technically voided this response, but demonstrated that the attorney general is unwilling to let the government off the hook and present the court with an insubstantial proposal just so that it can earn another three-month extension.
The current flurry of activity around charedi enlistment stems from private petitions filed to the High Court last year which challenged the legality of a cabinet resolution from June 25, 2023, in which the government instructed the IDF conscription authorities that “no procedures be taken to recruit of yeshiva students” until March 31, 2024.
The government passed that resolution because the law allowing for blanket military service exemptions — technically annual deferrals until the age of exemption — for charedi yeshiva students was set to expire. The coalition agreement included a clause requiring such a law to be legislated, but due to the judicial reforms program the charedi parties had agreed to defer such legislation, which without the reforms could have been struck down by the High Court.
By March 31, the government was supposed to have found a way to comply with a court ruling from 2017, which determined blanket military service exemptions for charedi yeshiva students to be discriminatory and illegal. But it told the court in February it had been unable to do so because of the October 7 atrocities and the outbreak of war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The state said at the time that it needed more time to legislate such a law as a result of the war and said it would outline what the draft law would include by the end of March, and then request a further extension until the end of June to pass the legislation.
However, it apparently failed to abide by its own schedule once again, and it’s unclear how it will manage to put together a comprehensive outline that satisfies the Attorney General’s Office within 12 hours.
The operative meaning of the Attorney-General’s response is that if there is no legitimacy for charedi students to continue studying without being conscripted as of April 1st, it will not be possible to transfer government budgets to them while they are in effect illegally avoiding being drafted into the army.
It’s a bit lame and lazy to use Baltimore yeshiva beis medrash picture for story on Israeli bochrim. If siteneeds a picture of an Israeli beis medrash I and many others can readily supply one.
This is a tragically divisive decision during a very difficult period. These leftists don’t understand that they are jeopardizing the protection Israel has because of the Torah learning in the holy Yeshivos.
first draft the leftests – check it out,almost no soldiers from tel aviv.
the AG is the enemy of the Jewish state.
she and the subprime court should be fired.
Do they not realize that ONLY Torah is what protects the IDF?
to agree with other people the ONLY zchus the Zionists have is the learning of Torah by the frum otherwise their entire society is parties, drinking, drugs, partying, different partners, toeiva parades etc, decadence. When the frum will control the budget we will double allocations to yeshivas, kollels and the like, let the secular move to Berlin like they have been doing.
Just make it a proper Kosher army
Mikveh
No women or girls
Study time Torah
Proper time for prayer
There’s no fighting on the base, so make it feasible
Also
Can instead
Make Sherut Leumi for Chareidi men.
That their service will be in their communities. The gov does it for Israeli Arabs.
Then they get extra benefits.
Why not for the Chareidim?
The secular hate us so!
They would rather help an Arab
I see it
I live here
This so ridiclous and ludcriuos in every sense and fashion.
1) How will you force charedim to comply? You can’t cut enough money that they should listen and you can’t lock em up.
2)Lets say your dream comes true and charedim are drafted large scale. Now what. How do you train them to be fit? How do you train them culturally? Have you ever tried getting 18 year old boys do to what they don’t want to do?
3)How will you accommodate religous beliefs? Will you7 build a mikva at army bases etc.? Gera chasdim will fight in long shmatas?
Bottom line is, I know many are frustarted but Israel isn’t czarist Russia and rightfully so. Its a democracy. And in a democracy you can’t force large crowds to comply like this. This whole thing is absurd from the gettgo. In reality its a trcik by the left tp bring Bibi down. They know charedim will never be in the IDF large scale.