Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs claimed that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir supports the controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft bill advanced by the government on Sunday, though the IDF shortly afterward denied that Zamir had endorsed the legislation directly.
Fuchs made the remarks at the High Court of Justice hearing on Sunday, pressing the government over its failure to implement last year’s ruling requiring effective enforcement of military service obligations against haredi draft dodgers, in a hearing on motions to hold the state in contempt of court.
The timing comes after Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Boaz Bismuth announced recently that the haredi conscription bill is set to be advanced again in the Knesset amid the IDF manpower shortage after progress on the bill was halted during the war.
Bismuth’s plan is to advance the draft bill within a package of legislation consisting of three laws: a law to extend mandatory military service, a conscription law, and a reserve duty law.
Fuchs’s statements at the High Court claimed the chief of staff had said that “Without these three laws, the IDF will collapse.”
“The IDF will not be able to carry out its missions, its ongoing tasks, homeland defense, and certainly not in wartime outposts [without the bill],” Fuchs, who was unusually summoned to appear at court, quoted Zamir as saying.
Bismuth subsequently posted on X/Twitter that Fuchs had revealed Zamir’s support for the legislation, and this proved his bill should be passed.
“The chief of staff is calling for the conscription law to be passed. We will do so soon. The conscription law will pass,” Bismuth stated.
Bismuth’s Knesset committee to begin meeting this month
Meetings in Bismuth’s Knesset committee are slated to begin already this month, during the parliament’s spring recess, to rapidly advance the bill, Bismuth’s office confirmed to The Jerusalem Post.
CRITICS ARGUE the bill is primarily a political measure for Prime Minister Netanyahu to appease haredi parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – in his coalition and would not increase enlistment.
Last month, Zamir warned during a security cabinet meeting that the IDF was nearing its breaking point and could soon collapse if there was no solution to the manpower shortage.
Despite Fuchs’ statement alleging Zamir’s support for Bismuth’s bill, IDF sources have made it clear that they deeply disapprove of the legislation, which the government is considering regarding granting significant exemptions to haredim from IDF service, with a stream of loopholes and delayed sanctions for any actual drafting progress.
IDF makes desire for haredim to serve clear
The IDF under Zamir has made it repeatedly clear to the cabinet that it believes the vast majority of haredim should be drafted into the IDF, and it has worked overtime to develop a wide variety of new specialized service paths to allow them to serve in a haredi-friendly environment, say IDF sources.
While the IDF would understand a transition period of a couple of years for gradually increasing the draft, it would oppose a long transition period and any bill that lacked real sanctions and teeth that would be enforceable without loopholes.
Rather, what Fuchs was referring to is not anywhere near the IDF’s preferred position, but its position of resignation, seeing that the government has failed to pass a proper bill to integrate haredim into the IDF despite 30 months having passed since October 7, 2023, and despite hugely increased stress on the mandatory and reservist soldiers.
Given that the IDF no longer expects the current government to pass a proper bill for increasing haredi integration into the military, IDF sources have said that it will accept almost any bill being passed if that will, at the very least, allow the Knesset to extend mandatory and reservist soldiers’ service.
Many political officials have said that they will not allow extensions to mandatory and reservist soldiers’ service if no bill is passed regarding haredi service.
All of this, IDF sources note, is merely to avoid the worst case scenario where not only are haredim not integrated, but where the IDF loses the ability to extend mandatory and reservist service soldiers’ tours of duty, such that at the moment when it is most shorthanded and desperate for more soldiers, it would need to confront a reality where it would have even fewer soldiers available than before October 7.
The IDF later on Sunday released an official clarification statement against Fuchs’s remarks that the chief of staff fully supported the current haredi draft law being advanced by the government.
“We wish to emphasize that the chief of staff referred to the need for a conscription law that meets the IDF’s immediate and urgent needs, as presented over the past year and since he assumed his position,” the military stated.
“The chief of staff did not express support for any specific conscription law,” it added.
Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.