Haredim will go to jail rather then get drafted into the army MK Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security committee on Tuesday.

Gafni also claimed that despite the fact that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman “loathe” each other, neither of them really want to advance a general election but were doing so simply to shorten the time Yair Lapid and Shaul Mofaz have for preparing for them.

The committee hearing was called to decide whether or not the proposals of the committee’s Working Group for the Implementation of the Tal Law should be published or not, in light of the fact that the High Court of Justice ruled the law unconstitutional in February.

Despite the law’s coming expiry on August 1, along with Gafni’s objections, the Working Group decided to continue with its work and, once complete, will present its final findings and recommendations.

Speaking to the issue of haredi enlistment in the army, Gafni, who celebrated his sixtieth birthday on Tuesday, said that none of the bills proposed thus far would solve the problem.

“Anyone who can see straight knows that it is impossible to injure [someone who defers army service under the] Torato Omunato framework,” said Gafni, in reference to the 2002 Tal Law which legally mandated indefinite postponement of army service for full time yeshiva students.

“At the end of the day, there won’t be any change, and in the worst case scenario, yeshiva students will just sit in jail.”

Working group chairman MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) said that a great responsibility lies on the shoulders of the panel, and that in the coming months they would endeavor “with or without elections, to coalesce a majority to pass a law mandating obligatory service, and to halt attempts aimed at preserving the Tal Law under the pretext of early elections.”

Plesner also vaunted the Kadima party’s proposal for a Tal Law replacement, saying it would lead to real change of the current situation.

There are currently 54,000 full-time yeshiva students who are able to indefinitely postpone their military service through the terms of the Tal Law, passed in 2002.

The current rate of haredi enlistment into the army stands at about 16 percent, as opposed to the national average of approximately 75 percent. Ultra-Orthodox Participation in national or civilian service programs currently stands at roughly 11 percent, bringing the percentage of haredim in some form of military or national service up to about 27 percent of those of draft age.

The Ultra-Orthodox community and its leaders argue that the spiritual well-being of the state is as important to its security as practical defense. A large protest movement against the low level of haredi enlistment has gathered pace this year, and has demanded mandatory military or national service for all, including the ultra-Orthodox.

Gafni, the chairman of the Knesset’s Finance Committee, also pointed out that the coalition agreements made when the present government was formed included a specific section explicitly guaranteeing the preservation of the status of yeshiva students.

“This chapter was signed by Yisrael Beytenu and Labor too, before it split up,” Gafni noted.

As to the question of whether or not to publish the findings and recommendations of the Working Group, Gafni said there was no point since the main political parties have already proposed new bills on the matter.

MK Nissim Ze’ev of Shas, who was also present at the hearing, proposed the establishment of ultra-Orthodox Hesder yeshivas to advance the integration of haredim into the army. The Hesder yeshiva system provide a framework for national-religious soldiers to combine their military service with yeshiva study over a five year period. Typically, the program constitutes a three and a half year period in yeshiva and one and a half years in IDF training and active duty.

Ze’ev is an advocate of maintaining the Torato Omunato framework but is also in favor of encouraging increased haredi enlistment. (© 1995- 2011, The Jerusalem Post 05/02/12)