Sixty-eight percent of the general public opposes the Knesset bill that would grant a blanket exemption for haredim from IDF service, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said Wednesday in a report.
Around one-third of parents with children ages 16-18, meaning in the middle of the IDF recruitment years, said they would discourage their children from joining combat units, or possibly military service entirely, if the bill passes, according to the survey by the Tel Aviv University-based research institute.
Twenty-five percent of the respondents said they supported the bill, and 7% said they were not sure, the report said.
“The results support the concern that the expected draft exemption bill [for haredim] will cause fatal harm to the model of the people’s army, and it will undermine the status of serving in the IDF as well as the ethos of the mandatory draft,” the INSS said.
Not everyone thinks haredim should be drafted
Not everyone believes all haredim should serve in the IDF, the report said. Forty-one percent of the respondents said haredim could serve either in the IDF or in a form of national service, similarly to religious-Zionist women, it said.
Another 16% had similar views, but they wanted haredim to either serve in the IDF or in a national service role with some kind of security component, the report said, while 11% supported ending the military draft for everyone.
Among the haredi public, 40% said they supported an end to the mandatory draft, while 27.3% were in favor of a blanket exemption for haredim.
The IDF high command is vehemently opposed to ending the mandatory draft and says it would substantially harm the quality of draftees.
About 37% of the respondents said they supported IDF reservists who are refusing their call-ups to protest the government’s judicial overhaul policy.
The INSS said 751 men and women, including a special population set of parents of draft-age children, were interviewed for the survey.
The timing of the survey was dictated by the idea of trying to provide the public and political officials data about how the public views the haredi draft exemption bill prior to the return of MKs to the next legislative session after the High Holy Days.