Likud MK Demands 10 Changes To ‘Toothless’ Proposed Charedi Draft Bill

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Likud MK Dan Illouz has written a sharp message to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth, also a member of Likud, demanding multiple changes to his proposed bill regulating charedi IDF enlistment. Illouz stressed  that he is unable to support the legislation as currently proposed.

“Unfortunately, the proposed law not only fails to create change but may even undermine the progress already achieved on the ground,” he writes, arguing that “in such a situation, it is better to leave the current situation than to pass a law that will lead to long years of non-conscription.”

“I cannot support a law that does not really bring positive change on an issue of an existential security need,” writes Illouz, who is one of the more outspoken critics of the legislation within the coalition.

Bismuth released the text of the long-awaited bill on Thursday, prompting criticism from within coalition ranks, opposition figures and legal advisers, including the committee’s legal adviser, Miri Frankel Shor.

The legislation, as currently laid out, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of charedi educational institutions.

Calling Bismuth’s bill “a collection of toothless threats” rather than effective sanctions against draft evaders, Illouz argues that it harms the socioeconomic integration of the charedi public while not creating any real incentive to enlist.

Illouz lists 10 different additional requirements for the law to be effective:

• Keep the effective sanctions that already exist today.
• Sanctions must remain in place with no age limit.
• The current definition of “Who is charedi” is too broad, and must be amended to prevent artificial inflation of the quotas.
• The law focuses only on Haredim. Illouz demands to apply sanctions also to other groups that do not enlist.
• The law should reinstate sanctions such as cancellation of property-tax (arnona) discounts.
•  Illouz demands lowering the exemption age to 23.
• Illouz opposes appointing a civilian rabbi to the oversight committee, demanding that only a military rabbi serve in that role.
•  The law should set a minimum quota for combat soldiers and combat-support roles.
• After various deductions (for different reasons), the current target amounts to only a few hundred soldiers per year- far from IDF requirements.
• The law ignores the charedi Hesder yeshivot, and Illouz demand to include them in the law as a recognized enlistment track.

“If these amendments are not made, the current situation is better than passing the current draft. The reality on the ground is already showing an increase in recruitment since real sanctions were imposed,” Illouz wrote to Bismuth. “We must not enact a law that will set us back.”