Posted on 04/17/23
| News Source: Times of Israel
The latest proposal by politicians to enable ultra-Orthodox Israeli men an earlier exemption from military service is likely to be struck down by Israel’s top court for being discriminatory, according to an expert in the matter.
For decades, ultra-Orthodox men have been allowed a near-blanket exemption from national service in favor of religious study (though small percentages do enlist), but in 2012, the High Court of Justice struck down the law permitting this arrangement as discriminatory. A new law was drafted to address the issue in 2014, but that too was overturned by the court three years later, with the justices demanding that the government pass fresh legislation on the matter, or else Haredi Israelis would be forced to enlist.
Since then, the government — through the defense minister — has been requesting and receiving extensions from the court, as the government failed to draft and pass legislation that would both pass muster with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Haredi coalition partners and also not fall afoul of the country’s discrimination laws. The current and 15th extension is scheduled to expire on July 31, 2023.
The latest proposal being discussed by Netanyahu and some coalition partners would lower the age of final exemption from the army from the current 26 to 23 or 21. While soldiers are generally drafted from age 18, many yeshiva students are thought to remain in religious study programs longer than they normally would in order to dodge the draft by claiming academic deferments until they reach the age of final exemption. By lowering the permanent exemption age, the government hopes to spur those Haredi men to leave the yeshiva and enter the workforce at a younger age.