The recent election results clearly showed how much the issue of equal sharing of the military-service burden means to large parts of the Israeli public. The enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is a key issues under dispute in coalition negotiations, and it's expected to be one of the first issues dealt with by the new Netanyahu government — whatever its makeup turns out to be.
In the absence of alternative legislation to the Tal Law, which exempted ultra-Orthodox men from military service until it expired last August, the IDF should have already taken action to draft them all into the army, in accordance with the Military Service Law. The question, however, is whether the IDF really needs all those tens of thousands of rabbinical college students who have declared the study of the Torah to be their full-time occupation. And supposing the IDF needs any of them, how many of them does the army actually need? How would the mass recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox affect the nature of the army?
The IDF is closely following the negotiations on forming the next government and has temporarily suspended drafting the 19,000 ultra-Orthodox young men aged 18 to 19, on the understanding that a new arrangement is expected soon. Out of that group of draft-eligible ultra-Orthodox young men, 3,200 have already passed preparatory classification processes at the IDF Recruitment Center and, according to a senior IDF officer, the army is ready to enlist them “at any moment.” This would require the IDF to form new units — possibly even one or two ultra-Orthodox battalions —and to prepare associated infrastructures. The IDF maintains that it might be done in the upcoming annual March draft. Some have even proposed that, now that the flow of infiltrators through Egypt has stopped, the Saharonim detention center, originally built in Ktziot in the Negev desert, could be converted to accommodate a new ultra-Orthodox battalion.
As far as the army is concerned, the issue of drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF cuts both ways.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
