Posted on 06/10/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
The Knesset plenum approved early Tuesday morning the continuous application of the Draft Law that will exempt haredim for whom "Torah is their craft" from service in the IDF.
The approval of the proposal will allow the coalition to advance the bill put forward by MK Benny Gantz in the previous Knesset on the drafting of the haredim and to continue the legislative procedures from where they left off in the previous Knesset.
In this way, the government will be able to bring the bill to the Knesset for its second and third readings in a short period of time.
The legislation lowers the age of exemption from mandatory service for haredi yeshiva students from 26 to 21 and “very slowly” increases the rate of haredi enlistment in the IDF.
The proposal states that the status of yeshiva students will be regulated, thousands of haredim members will enlist every year, and haredi yeshivot will continue to benefit from budgets from the state.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who voted against the legislation, told reporters before the vote, "I was not coordinated with Gantz and I am still not coordinated with Gantz. I am from the Likud and will remain in the Likud. I look at the soldiers in the eyes and they expect us to back them up. [They expect] that we will not do petty politics on the big backs of the soldiers."