Defense minister advancing his plan to implement national service alongside military duty to address situation in which only half of Israelis currently serve
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel s military correspondent.
Ultra-Orthodox men walk outside the IDF recruitment office in Jerusalem, on December 5, 2019. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Wednesday threatened to move to conscript all ultra-Orthodox Israelis, who currently are largely exempt from military service, beginning next month, as he presented a fresh plan to address the country’s overall enlistment policy.
For decades, ultra-Orthodox Israelis have maintained a near-blanket exemption from national service in favor of religious study, 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, but this too was overturned by the court in 2017, demanding that the government pass fresh legislation on the matter or else Haredi Israelis would be forced to enlist.
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