There's a differance between Dati leumi, or in english, normal religious, and Haredi, the ultra-orthodox who are breeding like bunnies and leeching money.
The latter have yet to serve in numbers larger then a single regiment thats continually understaffed.
They're also drawing off people from Dati Leumi(which isn't actually normal religious. It's more like the fundie section, although not the extreme ones) to Haredi. Generations that once served in the IDF bred generations that did Hesder(A short two year service that's spread over four years with half of every year spent in the Yeshiva), and which are now breeding parasitical Haredic filth.
It's a growing problem we've let fester for the last half-century, about time we got around to doing something about it.
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FTeik wrote:Only seven million Israelis? I thought there were a few more.
Oh well, in that case they can be relocated to eastern-germany, if things go really down the shitter.
It's less actually, there are about a million emigrants from Russia, many of whom aren't jews (I've seen figures in the area of 20%), and a large amount of Arab-Israeli citizens, and over 180,000 Bedouin.
There's only about5-5.4 million Jews in Israel, and that's people who call themselves Jews (Same as people calling themselves Christians in the US ).
Does the IDF pull in any of the Russian immigrants, or does that only apply to Jewish and Druze men and women? That's a pretty fucking huge immigrant crowd, considering how small Israel is (both in size and in population).
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Does the IDF pull in any of the Russian immigrants, or does that only apply to Jewish and Druze men and women? That's a pretty fucking huge immigrant crowd, considering how small Israel is (both in size and in population).
Russian immigrants primarily got here through claiming Jewish roots, meaning they are not exempt from the draft. Though quite a few of them(a not so small fraction) just draft dodge. And Israel has always had a large immigrant crowd, but lately, it's been more obvious, both due to the large number of immigrants at once(last time it happened was the 50s), the challenge of integrating both the Russian and the Ethopian immigrants.
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Currently, there are several groups which don't serve in the military (or Border Guard):
1) The first group consists of people who, under the current situation, are supposed to be drafted but aren't. This includes haredim as well as secular Jewish (and presumably Druze, who are also subject to the draft) Israelis who just can't be arsed to serve. In the case of those people, a big part of the problem is that under current law, only a small number are supposed to be exempted; the rest do so on false pretenses and it's more trouble than it's worth to catch them out.
One example is religious exemptions. Haredim aren't formally exempt from service - they just get it repeatedly deferred until they are ineligible to do any service (or ny real service, anyway) due to family size or age. However, this deferral applies only to yeshiva students - haredim who aren't (or have ceased beeing) such are supposed to be drafted. In practise, the army isn't going to make any kind of in-depth investigation - essentially, all you need is a note from a yeshiva. I remember reading some years ago about a (religious) placement offficer who was reprimanded because he refused to give deferrals to two "students", even though they were apparently unaware of "entry-level" yeshiva material. AFAIK, the situation with women is similiar - while women can get an exemption form the draft if they declare they can't serve for religious reasons, there's no attempt to verify if they really are religious.
2) The second group consists of people who are medically unfit to serve. In some cases, they may choose to volunteer for service.
3) The third group consists of people who aren't drafted due to ethnic concerns - Arabs, in the main. They're understandably relunctant to be drafted (though many of the Beduoin, as well as sume of the non-Arab minorities - Circassians, for example - volunteer for service) due to the possibility of ending up facing relatives in combat (I heard a case once where a hitchhiking soldier was kidnapped - on the way to the West Bank, the kidnappers realized they were of the same tribe and released him). A more serious problem is that any sort of national service is seen by many in that sector (including, disgustingly, some of their MKs) as a form of treason, and there have been calls to ostracise anyone doing so.
4) The fourth group consists of those who refuse to enlist due to ideological reasons. This can be further divided into (a) pacifists and (b) those whohave no basic problem with military service but object to Israeli policy. The latter group is generally sent to jail rather than exempted.
5) The fifth group consists of people for whom military service poses professional problems; those in professions where you have to begin in your teens and a several-year hiatus can prove disasterous for your career. This group mainly consists of musicians and athletes (models too, but I'm not losing any sleep over that). While there are programs which allow a select number to serve close to home and get a generous amount of free time (and thus participate in tournaments/performances and such), I personally don't see the point of either not exempting them completely or cancelling the programs - peeling potatoes for two years just so you can say you served seems pointless.
National Service provides a way to avoid the problems of some of those groups - those who specifically have a problem with military service (the medically unfit, pacifists, religious women, and so on). This allows them to avoid the military service while still serving the community in some way - in hospitols, old age homes, education, and so on - all of which have a severe manpower shortage. There's also the option of serving in the police. While until recently these options were mainly open only to women who didn't serve in the IDF, but recently it has been made open to anyone who'se exempted from the draft.
So in the main, this proposal will affect those who are either supposed to be drafted today and aren't, or who are fit to serve but don't do so for various reasons.
In the case of the first bunch, given that the problem is more in the enforcement than in the existence of the law, I don't see it making much difference - there'll still be loopholes. For example, there will have to be exemptions for the medically unfit, and probably for those with professional problems , which can be taken advantage of (not so much in the latter case, of course).
In the case of the second group, while the prospect forcing the yeshiva students and Arab youths (which are the main two sectors which will be affected) to do National Service has its upsides, I think the harm would outweigh the good. A large part of the problem is resistance from their respective societies(both of which, for their own reasons, are self-isolated from the Israeli mainstream), and forcing them to serve en masse, would, IMO, excacerbate existing tensions (political in the case of the yeshiva students, and ethnic in the case of the Arabs) excessively.
So even assuming this bill makes it into law, I suspect the effect will be fairly minor.
I'm also not convinced this law is necessary. I haven't seen figures which indicate the IDF is having problems meeting its required personnel quotas. The problem with draft-dodging (and Reserve-service dodging) is more social than not - the main problem isn't lack of manpower (though more manpower in the National Service would be of grate benefit) but the fact that the burden only falls on a certain segment of the population. It seems to me that, while perhaps not as quick or as satisfying as doing it by force, a better way would be a gradual approach - trying to make it more socially imperative to serve in some fashion (especially in the Arab and haredi sectors), as well as offering incentives to do so. As more and more people serve, it will become more socially acceptable for those roups to do so, accelerating the process.
Faqa wrote: Dati Leumi(which isn't actually normal religious. It's more like the fundie section, although not the extreme ones)
Depends which. Dati Leumit are the nationalist section of the kipot srugot (what you might call Modern Orthodox in the States) but they're not really more extreme religiously, AFAIK.
Given the frequency and enthusiasm with which GOD directs the Israelites to butcher various heathens in the OT one would think that the religous fanatics would be eager to serve.
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CJvR wrote:Given the frequency and enthusiasm with which GOD directs the Israelites to butcher various heathens in the OT one would think that the religous fanatics would be eager to serve.
Religious fanatics are often parasites as much as they are homicidal. Jewish fanatics in Israel probably don't recognise the authority of the state due to it being as secular as it is instead of a total theocracy. If it were a theocracy, they would be in power and send other people to die anyway.
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CJvR wrote:Given the frequency and enthusiasm with which GOD directs the Israelites to butcher various heathens in the OT one would think that the religous fanatics would be eager to serve.
Religious fanatics are often parasites as much as they are homicidal. Jewish fanatics in Israel probably don't recognise the authority of the state due to it being as secular as it is instead of a total theocracy. If it were a theocracy, they would be in power and send other people to die anyway.
There have in fact been a whole bunch of news stories this very week about rabbis from various sectors (including those nice, friendly Chabad ones) pronouncing sentence of death on politicians who talk ahout any sort of terratorial concession. Here's one: YNet
I posted a little while ago about what might happen in the future in Israel if a two-state settlement does get hammered out - the fundamentalists with guns could well take to the hills in large militias. I'm not sure that encouraging the charedi sector to learn how to shoot is really a wonderful idea.
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