Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara sent a letter on Tuesday morning to the legal advisor of the Ministry of Defense, demanding additional personal sanctions against yeshiva students who are evading military service.
The proposed sanctions include:
- Revoking housing benefits, including government subsidies for renting and buying properties.
- Denying economic incentives from the Ministry of Economy for small and medium-sized businesses
- Conditioning property tax (arnona) discounts on compliance with the draft.
Baharav-Miara noted that although she initially called for these measures about two weeks ago, Defense Minister Israel Katz has yet to respond. She urged the Ministry of Defense’s legal advisor to present the matter to him again for urgent action.
Recently, Defense Minister Katz admitted that issuing draft orders unilaterally had failed and it demonstrated the need for a new draft law.
He explained that: “The principles of the draft law I presented to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee are based on two main pillars: setting recruitment targets for significant military service by the charedi public — including clear sanctions for failing to meet the targets — alongside safeguarding and preventing harm to the Jewish Torah world, which is a crucial foundation of our existence here as a Jewish state.”
Katz stressed that the draft law “will lead to the rapid integration of thousands and tens of thousands from the charedi community as combat soldiers and combat support in the IDF — which is in great need of additional manpower in both regular service and reserves. Every other approach attempted so far, including the unilateral issuing of draft orders, has failed and resulted in a grim reality where only a small percentage of charedim serve in the IDF.”
