A controversial bill in favor of an ultra-orthodox project gets first reading at the Knesset – Israel News



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The Knesset pbaded Monday night a bill to enlist ultra-Orthodox men in the Israeli army. 63 members of the Knesset voted for the bill with 39 opponents.

The bill pbaded its first reading on Monday night. He must pbad three votes to become law.

Military conscription is compulsory in Israel for all men and women over 18 years of age. The ultra-Orthodox fiercely resist any attempt to arm their community in the army in significant numbers.

>> The controversial law that would bring the ultra-orthodox Israeli community into military service | Explained

As they have done successfully in the past, ultra-Orthodox parties do everything they can to torpedo the bill. Indeed, on Monday, the leader of Judaism United Yaakov Litzman warned that if the bill pbaded its second and third reading in the Knesset this week, his party would resign from the government coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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The ultra-Orthodox parties proposed alternative legislation that would exempt all Yeshiva students from military service. But the current process was spurred by the Israeli High Court of Justice, which overturned such a bill last September, on the grounds that it violated the fundamental principles of equality.

The court gave the government 12 months to pbad a law formalizing egalitarian and effective requirements for ultra-orthodox military service.

The latest attempt, led by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who pbaded his first-reading vote in the Knesset on Monday night, aims to hit the ultra-orthodox community where he hurts – the wallet.

According to the current version of the proposed law, yeshivas will have to meet a quota of students who pbad from their studies to the army or make an alternative form of national service.

Quotas will first be lower and then increase year by year. After the second year following the adoption of the law, sanctions for non-compliance will come into force.

During the third and fourth years, any yeshiva who does not make his quota will face a financial penalty. His loss of government funding will be the proportion he can not meet his quota. In other words, the less he sends soldiers to the IDF, the less he will receive money.

The penalty will become more severe in the fifth and sixth years of the law, and even more severe in the following years – first doubling, then tripling, and finally quadrupling.

The law states that the percentage of students coming from a yeshiva to the army must increase between 5 and 8% each year, with the goal of doubling the number of students. Ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students in the Israeli army by 2027.

The 2018 quota for ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva students in the army service would be close to 4,000. By the end of the annual increases in 2027, the goal is to have more than 6,844 ultra-Orthodox recruits on duty.

The most profound and controversial part of the legislation is the punishment to scuttle large-scale attempts by ultra-Orthodox community leaders to resist the law.

If the total number of yeshiva students in service does not reach 85% of the quota for three years, all bets will be canceled and all ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students will be forced to enlist , says the bill.

In an ideal world, the ultra-Orthodox parties would like to close the whole process with the adoption of a basic law (a law with constitutional status) that would provide an exemption project for the 39, study the Torah by likening it to military service.

Up to now, however, their considerable political influence has not proved sufficient for the Netanyahu government to accept such a proposal, which would surely exasperate a large percentage of the electorate and would require a high political price.

Opponents of the Left, on the other hand, oppose the fact that if lay refractors are criminally responsible for their actions, the proposed legislation only imposes collective financial sanctions on the ultra-Orthodox community. and does not include sufficient individual criminal responsibility. They also consider the drafting process of ultra-Orthodox soldiers too slow and too gradual.

The bill was criticized by opposition politicians such as MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union), who described the legislation as "a totally shameful plan and act of surrender that gives the green light at the breakout ".

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