{"id":561268,"date":"2026-07-27T04:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/561268\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T04:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:03:15","slug":"attorney-general-calls-on-high-court-to-rule-against-haredi-draft-enforcement-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/561268\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney-General calls on High Court to rule against haredi draft enforcement freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara has asked the High Court of Justice to strike down a law suspending enforcement against ultra-Orthodox (haredi) yeshiva students<\/a> who fail to report for military service, arguing that it leaves their duty to enlist intact while removing the consequences of refusing.<\/p>\n

In a Friday response, the Attorney-General\u2019s Office described the amendment as a discriminatory \u201cgroup immunity mechanism\u201d that protects one sector from arrest, investigation and prosecution while leaving other draft evaders exposed to the force of the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law has no legal future,\u201d the state concluded.<\/p>\n

In a separate response, the Knesset\u2019s own legal advisers also declined to defend the way the law was passed, telling the court that the final measure was fundamentally different from the bill approved in its first reading and was therefore enacted through a defective legislative process.<\/p>\n

The Sunday response focused primarily on how the law was enacted rather than repeating Baharav-Miara\u2019s full constitutional argument. It nevertheless described the law as suffering from serious constitutional problems and said the defective process went \u201cto the root\u201d of the legislation.<\/p>\n

\"HarediHaredi men are seen protesting the effort to draft ultra-Orthodox Israelis into the IDF. (credit: FLASH90)<\/p>\n

The law passed the Knesset on July 14. Justice Ofer Grosskopf froze it the following day and ordered the state and Knesset to explain why it should not be struck down. Five petitions will be heard by an expanded nine-justice panel.<\/p>\n

Baharav-Miara<\/a>\u2019s argument rests on a simple distinction: The amendment does not formally exempt yeshiva students from military service, but prevents the state from enforcing that obligation against those covered by it.<\/p>\n

Draft orders remain valid, and qualifying students do not receive lawful exemptions or deferments. However, those who declare that they meet the law\u2019s Torah-study requirements are protected from arrest, investigation, prosecution and other proceedings.<\/p>\n

Previous haredi enlistment frameworks were struck down partly because they relied on voluntary cooperation and lacked meaningful sanctions. This amendment goes further, the state argued, because it removes existing enforcement tools without replacing them with enlistment targets, economic incentives or another mechanism intended to increase enlistment.<\/p>\n

The response said the law creates two forms of discrimination.<\/p>\n

The first concerns the burden of military service. By blocking enforcement against one group, the amendment limits the state\u2019s ability to recruit additional soldiers from that population, leaving conscripts and reservists to carry a heavier wartime burden.<\/p>\n

The second concerns equality before the law. A member of the general public who ignores repeated draft orders remains exposed to arrest, investigation, and criminal proceedings. Someone accused of the same conduct who qualifies under the amendment receives protection from those measures.<\/p>\n

The government has argued that arrests and criminal sanctions will not produce meaningful haredi enlistment, and that lasting change requires legislation reached with the community and military frameworks adapted to haredi needs. Aggressive enforcement, it says, could deepen distrust and drive potential recruits away.<\/p>\n

The Knesset response laid out that argument in greater detail. It quoted Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman and Likud MK Boaz Bismuth describing the law as a temporary \u201ctourniquet\u201d intended to stop a dangerous deterioration in relations with the haredi public, rather than as a comprehensive solution to the draft dispute.<\/p>\n

Fuchs told the committee that continued coercive enforcement risked turning the wider haredi public into the anti-enlistment Peleg Yerushalmi sect and could produce a reversal in the gradual rise in enlistment. Heads of haredi hesder yeshivas similarly told lawmakers that the arrests were making it harder for students who had chosen military service to withstand pressure from their families and communities.<\/p>\n

The Knesset placed these claims alongside the opposing position presented by the IDF, which told the committee that arrests, imprisonment and travel restrictions were part of its ability to enforce the law and fill its ranks.<\/p>\n

Baharav-Miara did not claim enforcement alone would solve the problem. The response recognized the need for adapted service tracks, outreach and arrangements allowing haredi soldiers to maintain their way of life.<\/p>\n

Individual consequences, including arrest and restrictions on leaving the country, are one part of a broader enlistment policy, the state said. Military officials have told the court and Knesset that such measures encourage some draft evaders to come forward and regularize their status.<\/p>\n

The IDF has also expanded haredi service options, including the Hashmonaim Brigade, technology tracks and Border Police programs. Legal and military officials have nevertheless said those efforts must be accompanied by effective enforcement against those who refuse to report.<\/p>\n

The Attorney-General\u2019s Office previously asked the government to present an immediate enforcement plan, noting that many measures could be adopted without new legislation. According to the response, those requests went unanswered.<\/p>\n

Ruling could cause ‘deep rupture’ within public<\/p>\n

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir<\/a> warned that protection from enforcement would create a clear incentive not to report and undermine efforts to increase haredi enlistment.<\/p>\n

He also objected to requiring the IDF to establish a committee deciding which students qualify for protection. The army, he argued, should not approve immunity while asking soldiers and reservists to make exceptional sacrifices.<\/p>\n

Doing so could cause a \u201cdeep rupture\u201d with the serving public, damage confidence in the system\u2019s fairness and force the IDF to examine yeshiva attendance, an area outside its expertise.<\/p>\n

The Knesset response added that the law\u2019s proposed oversight system was itself one of the central problems identified during the committee hearings.<\/p>\n

The Defense Ministry had never established the inspection mechanism contemplated in earlier legislation dating back to 2014, the Knesset\u2019s legal advisers said. The alternative proposed by the government was to use Education Ministry inspectors who already check yeshivas for funding purposes.<\/p>\n

But those inspections focus primarily on institutions and their eligibility for public funding, rather than determining whether an individual student is genuinely studying enough hours to receive protection from arrest. The Knesset legal team warned during the legislative process that relying on a system that did not exist in practice could leave the law functioning as broad immunity without meaningful supervision.<\/p>\n

The law was enacted \u201cout of recognition of the importance of Torah study.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baharav-Miara did not dispute that Torah study is a value the Knesset may recognize. Her argument is that the amendment does not regulate or encourage Torah study itself. Its practical effect is to protect yeshiva students from enforcement of an obligation that continues to apply to them.<\/p>\n

The question is therefore not whether Torah study is important, the response said, but whether that importance can justify protecting an entire group from the consequences of breaking a law applying to everyone else.<\/p>\n

Previous arrangements sought, at least formally, to balance Torah study, increased enlistment and reduced inequality. Amendment 28 abandons that balance because it contains no meaningful mechanism to increase enlistment or ease the burden on serving soldiers.<\/p>\n

The recently enacted Basic Law recognizing Torah study<\/a> as a fundamental value does not automatically make every law passed in its name constitutional, the state added. Recognizing a value does not allow the Knesset to disregard equality and the rule of law.<\/p>\n

Supporters called the amendment a temporary bridge until the next Knesset passes a comprehensive draft law. Baharav-Miara rejected that.<\/p>\n

Legislative process fundamentally ‘defective’<\/p>\n

The High Court struck down the previous framework in 2017. It expired in June 2023 without a replacement. In June 2024, the court ruled unanimously that there was no legal basis for treating yeshiva students differently and that the Security Service Law must be enforced equally.<\/p>\n

After years of failed legislation, the state said there was no reason to believe suspending enforcement would make the next Knesset act faster. Removing the immediate consequences could instead reduce pressure to reach a permanent solution.<\/p>\n

The state also said the legislative process was fundamentally defective.<\/p>\n

The proposal began as a broad 2022 government bill intended to regulate haredi enlistment while balancing military service, Torah study and employment. The government revived it through the Knesset\u2019s continuity procedure, allowing debate to resume without beginning again.<\/p>\n

But after lengthy committee discussions over a comprehensive framework, the coalition replaced it with a narrower measure focused on suspending enforcement.<\/p>\n

The Attorney-General\u2019s Office said the old bill was used as a \u201clegislative skeleton\u201d for a substantially different law that had not undergone the same full process.<\/p>\n

That change is the center of the Knesset\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

The original bill sought to increase haredi enlistment and employment while recognizing Torah study: draft targets, lawful deferments, a proposed exemption age, service alternatives, financial consequences for yeshivas that failed to meet enlistment targets and mechanisms for ending the arrangement if it failed.<\/p>\n

The committee held more than 80 hearings on that wider framework under former chairman Yuli Edelstein and later Bismuth. Those discussions examined the IDF\u2019s manpower needs, enlistment targets, sanctions, adapted service tracks, employment, supervision and the effect of haredi frameworks on women serving in the military.<\/p>\n

The Knesset\u2019s lawyers said those hearings did not automatically validate the final law, because they concerned a fundamentally different arrangement. Following a June request from Fuchs and Defense Minister Israel Katz, the comprehensive framework was set aside and a new temporary draft focused solely on freezing criminal enforcement was introduced and passed within approximately two weeks.<\/p>\n

The fact that the committee had held dozens of previous meetings was therefore not enough, the Knesset argued. Those meetings had been devoted to building a law that would bring yeshiva students into military service. The final law did not regulate enlistment at all.<\/p>\n

The Knesset\u2019s legal advisers said the freeze might conceivably have been included as one temporary clause within a complete enlistment law. But once the committee removed the broader enlistment arrangement and left only the enforcement freeze, the subject of the legislation had changed.<\/p>\n

Using a metaphor raised during the Knesset proceedings, the response said that while branches may be added to a tree, they cannot survive once the trunk has been cut down: \u201cAfter the trunk was cut, there is no longer any purpose to the branches.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Attorney-General\u2019s Office said the old bill was used as a \u201clegislative skeleton\u201d for a substantially different law that had not undergone the same full process.<\/p>\n

The Knesset\u2019s legal advisers reached a similar conclusion through parliamentary law. They said the temporary measure constituted a \u201cnew subject\u201d because it differed from the proposal approved in the first reading.<\/p>\n

The Knesset Committee rejected that objection before the bill was passed, despite Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik\u2019s position that the final text was a completely different arrangement. In its court response, however, the Knesset Legal Department maintained that Afik\u2019s legal assessment was correct.<\/p>\n

That meant, according to the response, that the final law had never actually been approved in a first reading. It therefore failed to comply both with Knesset rules and with Basic Law: The Knesset, which provides the constitutional foundation for parliamentary procedure.<\/p>\n

The Knesset identified a second, related defect. Applying continuity to the 2022 proposal after the October 7 massacre had already required an unusually rigorous legislative process because the security situation and the IDF\u2019s manpower needs had changed dramatically.<\/p>\n

That requirement became even stronger after Edelstein was removed as committee chairman midway through the process. Afik had warned at the time that the replacement could damage the legislation unless the committee continued holding deep, independent discussions, examined updated military data and avoided allowing its timetable to be dictated by the government or coalition.<\/p>\n

The committee initially followed that path. But the final temporary law was introduced shortly before the election recess, omitted the core mechanisms developed during the earlier hearings and contradicted the IDF\u2019s position on the need for enforcement, the Knesset response said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe continuity \u2018pipe\u2019 that was supposed to connect the original bill with the final law was severed,\u201d the Knesset concluded, describing the defect as one that went to the root of the legislative process.<\/p>\n

Baharav-Miara asked the court to keep the amendment frozen and ultimately declare it void, concluding that \u201cthe unconstitutionality inherent in it speaks for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara has asked the High Court of Justice to strike down a law suspending enforcement against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21624,16376,12184,12186,835,1031,85,46,14406,43,122898],"class_list":["post-561268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-attorney-general","tag-gali-baharav-miara","tag-haredi","tag-haredi-draft","tag-high-court-of-justice","tag-idf","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-knesset","tag-news","tag-ultra-orthodox-draft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}