'Israel' extends mandatory army service amid internal division
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If the decision is finalized, it will be implemented for the next eight years, with another vote scheduled for Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
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Israeli soldiers take position near the Lebanese border, in northern occupied Palestine, on July 12, 2023. (AFP)
The Israeli cabinet approved Friday a vote to extend the mandatory IOF service period to 36 months, or three years, Israeli media reported.
If the decision is finalized, it will be implemented for the next eight years, with another vote scheduled for Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
This approval follows recent harsh criticism from Security Minister Yoav Gallant, who accused cabinet members of politicizing the issue.
A deepening internal division
Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Yitzhak Goldknopf, and the Haredi party ministers linked the approval of the mandatory service extension law to the approval of the Haredi draft exemption law, in an attempt to block the vote on the Haredi draft law, according to Israel Hayom.
Israeli media reported that Security Minister Yoav Gallant faced criticism from Netanyahu and other ministers over the Haredi draft and military service extension laws, which Gallant supported despite government opposition.
In a related context, Maariv reported that a heated argument occurred between Gallant and Likud Communications Minister Shlomo Karai, along with other ministers, over the extension of mandatory military service for Israeli soldiers.
Last month, Gallant had urged Netanyahu to urgently discuss extending regular military service to 3 years and drafting over 3,000 Haredim.
'Israel has no right to exist', Chief Rabbis say upon Haredim draft
"Israel's" chief Sephardic rabbis have officially instructed Yeshiva students Wednesday to neglect army recruitment offices, slamming the latest mandatory conscription law discussed within the Knesset, and encouraging students to "favor prison and budget deprivations than cooperating with the Israeli army."
They stated that the law aimed to "destroy the Torah".
Rabbi Dov Landau, one of the chief rabbis of the Haredim, aggressively attacked Security Minister Yoav Gallant's decision to call up 3,000 Haredi Jews for military service, saying "A state that recruits yeshivas has no right to exist."
"The army is at war with us, and wants to usurp the Torah students' rights, which is complete suicide," he said, adding "In the absence of the regime, and amid the army's war against us, what is the point of standing for what? The government is completely and absolutely against us."
Regarding the mandatory conscription of the ultra-orthodox community, the chief rabbis convened and urged the Haredim to divert from drafting orders and abstain from going to recruitment offices.
At the end of the meeting, Landau requested that Rabbi Haim Aharon Kaufman, the chief of the Haredim community, relay his opinion to his Sephardic and Hasidic counterparts and form a unified stance against military conscription.
The head of the Slabdoka Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, ordered students to influence the ultra-orthodox youth who do not study in schools of religion against any military conscription commands.
Read more: Israeli mothers slam Netanyahu for treating soldiers as expendables
