With Tal Law expired chareidi teens will receive their first draft notice at the age of 16.5-years-old along with the general population. This compels future inductees to begin the process, which takes over a year. Officials fear that many or most chareidim will simply throw the notices out, simply ignoring them, which may lead to thousands of young adults listed as AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave) from the military, which usually leads to arrest warrants if ignored for too long.
This some predict will lead to military police raids in yeshivos as the Defense Ministry becomes aware of the increasing number of AWOL teens, many likely to be in the chareidi community. Persons who receive an induction date and fail to report are arrested and jailed once apprehended and this may now be the case with chareidim as well.
For those seeking to sign up for a civil/national service program, chareidim who arrived at the center on Wednesday, 13 Menachem Av 5772 were told “we are sorry” but for the time being, they are prohibited from accepting new candidates due to the expiration of the Tal Law.
Shas affiliated Yom L’yom newspaper reports Shas leader Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai is meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak towards preventing a massive draft of thousands of chareidim during this period in which there is no legal arrangement to prevent such a move.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
The IDF wouldn’t dare enter Meah Shearim to arrest the 17 and 18 year olds who throw away their draft notices, for fear of a civil war. The Meah Shearim youth are not about to join the IDF.
So the Israeli goverment gets to decide. They can try mass arrests, and probably end up with a crippled army and with Israel suffering a severe public relations disaster — this can be called the Iranian/Palestinian option, since that’s who ends up controlling Eretz Yisrael. This is therefore, unlikely “worst case” scenario.
Alternatively, they can treat people refusing to serve in the army for halachic reason as conscientious objectors, or perhaps treat them as psychologically useless for military service – and avoid a confrontation. This is a more likely probability since the zionists have heretofore not displayed a serious deathwish.