The political ramifications of the High Court of Justice’s ruling on Thursday – that beginning on April 1 the state can no longer refrain from drafting haredi men into the IDF, and that state funding to yeshivot will cease beginning on April 1 as well – could go in several directions depending on developments in the coming weeks.
The previous situation was that yeshivot would provide quarterly reports on the number of students, and each student aged 18 and over would receive a yearly deferral until age 26, after which they received a permanent exemption. While different sources include different numbers, the total number of yeshiva students is somewhere in the range of 150,000, and the number of students between the ages of 18-26 is in the range of 60,000.
The haredi yeshivot have different sources of funding. In general, the smaller a yeshiva is, the more it depends on state funding, a source from one of the haredi parties explained. The funding is provided every month. While its cessation for April is unlikely to cause yeshivot to shut down, a few months of blocked funding could cause many to collapse. However, the larger yeshivot that have name recognition and donors will survive financially, the source explained.
State funding for yeshivot is based on a per-student basis, and in many cases, yeshivot have students registered who do not study there, the source said. He estimated that some 1,500 students in every age group (approximately 12%) already did not qualify for yearly deferrals, and could be drafted into the IDF relatively easily. Some of the yeshivot are entirely fictitious and do not exist in reality, he added. Many haredi businessmen make their livings off of these false reports, and state oversight has not done enough to oppose the phenomenon.
According to the source, one scenario is that the cut in state funding could slice off this layer of “cream,” simultaneously saving the state money and freeing up thousands of haredi men for IDF service.
But a different haredi source said simply that “no yeshiva shuts down due to a lack of money,” and a third source said that while cutting funds from yeshivot will be difficult for some, most will adapt. This indicates that the political reality is not so simple.
The coalition may attempt to bypass the funding cuts in several ways. The cut in funding is only for yeshiva students aged 18-26 who were not given deferrals or whose deferrals have run out, and the coalition can, for example, change the criteria for state funding and balance out the loss by receiving more for students above the age of 26.
Alternatively, the state can attempt to funnel the funds to yeshivot via other avenues, such as study grants or “Jewish identity” initiatives.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S Office addressed these options on Sunday, and according to reports clarified that the state cannot compensate the haredim by finding other funding avenues and that doing so would qualify as a violation of the High Court’s directive to cease funding. A “source close to Netanyahu” said in response on Sunday that it was “unclear what was so urgent for the attorney general to create a schism in Israeli society on the draft issue after the High Court accepted the prime minister’s request to complete a new plan within 30 days with an expanded bench of nine judges. The attorney-general’s office is not authorized to empty the content of the High Court’s decisions.”
The comment by this “source close to Netanyahu” referred to the fact that the High Court’s directive to cease funding was given as a temporary measure and that in May an expanded bench of nine justices will decide whether or not to make the measure permanent. This means that while yeshivot are likely to lose funding for April, they can begin to receive funding once again as soon as May if the government can come up with a new proposal for the haredi draft that will earn the support of the attorney-general.
Knesset recess may bring about a plan
In the meanwhile, the Knesset will be on spring recess between April 8 to May 19, and the government thus has at least until then before the haredi parties can threaten to disperse the Knesset and go to an election. The legal and political timetable thus gives the government a few more weeks to work on a new, detailed plan for the haredi draft, or figure out new ways to avoid it.
There is room to believe that the government could come up with a plan by May that will lead to more haredim joining national service, and passing it into law in June or July. Netanyahu said in a press conference on Sunday night that the haredi politicians had gone further in negotiations than what he expected, and further than ever before in what they are willing to concede on the issue. A spokesperson for the Likud said in a phone conversation earlier on Sunday that the government would come up with a detailed plan with an array of options for haredi national service, including IDF service but not exclusively, as well as to offset the inequality of the remaining exemptions based on the formula that “whoever gives more receives more.”
On the other hand, the devil is in the details. The result of intense negotiations over the past few weeks was a plan that the finance ministry’s legal adviser said did not essentially differ from past plans that failed in drafting haredim, and the attorney-general’s office said that the plan lacked “basic professional foundations.” If this is what the government came up with after weeks of negotiation, there is no guarantee that it will come up with a better plan in the coming weeks.
ANOTHER POLITICAL complication is the legislative procedure. If the government cannot come up with a plan that is accepted by the attorney general, it could attempt to bypass the necessity of the attorney general’s approval by proposing the new plan as a private bill by one of the Likud members of Knesset. This is unlikely, however, as private bills face a longer legislative procedure, which gives the opposition more time and opportunities to slow or block it.
In any event, no matter if the bill is sponsored by a private MK or by the government, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) demanded last week that the bill be prepared in his committee, and not in an ad-hoc committee formed for the specific purpose of a haredi service bill like the Knesset has done in the past. Edelstein is independent-minded and came out in the past against government policies.
He also wields some political clout and could try to lead an attempt within the coalition to vote against the bill if it does not go through his committee. Should the bill reach his committee, he may attempt to alter it in a way that would no longer be acceptable to the haredi parties, and the crisis could begin anew.
Even if the government manages to bypass Edelstein, there are still several Likud MKs who could oppose a bill that they believe is unsatisfactory. According to a report by KAN News on Monday, Netanyahu and Shas chairman MK Aryeh Deri discussed an option of having MKs from both Israeli-Arab parties not be present at a vote on the bill, to ensure that the coalition has a majority. The Hadash-Ta’al Party responded on Monday that it would not agree to do so and would join the efforts to bring down the government. The second Arab party, Ra’am, did not immediately respond.
The bottom line is that the current crisis is unlikely to bring down the government at least until late May or June, and in the meantime, the outcome depends on the government’s political will to have haredim commit to national service.
With the haredim in power and Netanyahu famous for his knack in delaying decisions, expect the government to try to reach an agreement with the bare minimum of haredi commitment while attempting to slow court proceedings as much as possible.
Unlike in the past, however, there is no longer a legal basis for the haredi exemption, and coupled with the cessation of funding for yeshivot, the security establishment in the meantime is required by law to begin proceedings to call up haredi men for service. Without a legislative solution, this could lead to a clash between military recruiters and the haredi public, as well as to mass haredi protests and disruptions.