More details have been released about the coalition agreement as it relates to the Haredi draft and religion and state.
For the new legislation on haredi enlistment, a ministerial
committee will be set up to devise the bill, which must be brought to the
Knesset within 45 days of the swearing-in of the government.
The plan, to
be implemented by 2017, will set a limit of 1,800 yeshiva students who will be
given a complete exemption each year from national service at the age of 21 and
who will receive a higher stipend than at present.
They will be obligated
to study until 26 and will be subject to personal economic sanctions if they
evade their obligations.
And as anyone who knows how this country works can already figure out, the identity of those 1,800 will be determined by protectziot (whom you know). Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that these will be the top 1,800 boys in yeshiva.
I'm just waiting for the national religious yeshivas to wake up and demand to be part of the exemptions. I assume that will happen too.
Anyone wishing to defer their national service
for religious studies may do so until age 21, when they will have to perform
either military or civilian service, with the Defense Ministry and IDF given
first choice on who will be drafted into the army. The remainder will go to
civilian service, will which – for the majority of recruits – consist of
“substantial service” in the Police, Ambulance, or Fire and Rescue services as
well as the IDF Home Front Command and the voluntary emergency response service
ZAKA. Those serving in the Civilian Service will be paid less than those in the
IDF.
Anyone refusing to serve without an exemption will be subject to
personal economic sanctions. Yeshivot with high percentages of students who
refuse to serve will also have financial penalties levied against
them.
This is the real club and I suspect we will see yeshivoth trying to raise money abroad even more than they do already.
I also wonder what will happen when the country's poverty statistics start to reflect the fact that they're cutting off support from people who are already barely making it. What effect will that have on Israel's membership in the OECD, for example. I doubt that 100% will refuse to serve, but I suspect that a very high percentage will refuse to serve. And by the way, what about all the non-Haredi draft evaders?
The plan also seeks to draft at least 1,600 haredim into combat
units with at least two new battalions of what is known as Nahal Haredi to be
established by 2014, with more to come after that, and the creation of a haredi
basic training base.
For the record, Nahal Haredi is already the largest unit in the IDF.... But don't tell anyone that.
Between now and 2017, anyone over the age of 22 will
be given the option to serve or not. Anyone choosing not to serve will be given
an exemption, cleared to join the workforce and be provided with professional
training in sectors of the economy requiring additional manpower.
But what happens after 2017 to anyone over age 22 who refuses to serve? Is the country going on a massive prison construction spree between now and then?
One of the most important clauses of the coalition
agreement is that granting of all state benefits will be dependent on either
being employed or proving that one is actively looking for
employment.
This will have a serious effect on the ability of full-time
yeshiva students to continue studying. This condition will also apply to
subsidized daycare for children, especially important in the haredi community,
but will only take effect in five years.
What happens to people who are self-employed? What does 'actively looking for employment' mean? What if there is none? What if there is none that matches your skill sets? Don't forget - we're not talking about unemployment compensation here. We're talking about child allowances and government-subsidized mortgages for young couples. Speaking of which, this coalition apparently doesn't allow housewives anymore....
These new policies will specifically have a serious effect on those who are really studying. It will have much less effect on those working 'off the books' on the side. And yes, that goes on everywhere in this country, not just in the Haredi world.
The agreement also calls for
core curriculum subjects to be taught to all schoolchildren, including
haredim.
Haredi schools will have two years to implement this
curriculum.
Good luck with that.
With regards to issues of religion and state, the coalition
agreement with Bayit Yehudi states that “legislative changes in matters of
religion will be [made] with the agreement of all coalition
parties.”
This essentially gives the national-religious Bayit Yehudi
party, along with all the others, the ability to stymie reforms on religious
matters such as the hot-button issues of civil marriage, and
conversion.
However, the agreement also lacks for the first time a clause
committing the government to the preservation of the “status quo” on religious
matters, the series of promises to the haredi community pertaining to the
preservation of religious standards made by David Ben- Gurion in 1947, possibly
opening the way for reforms in this area.
It also gives the religion-hating Tzipi Livni a veto over what legislation gets proposed. And Livni plans to use that veto:
"The disagreements between me and the Bayit Yehudi are very deep,"
Livni told Channel 10. "Regrettably, the pact between Lapid and Bennett
inserted those elements into the government."
"I hope that on the diplomatic subjects, Lapid won't adopt Bennett's
views," she added. "I expect that in this government, at least on
diplomatic matters, we will receive support from Bayit Yehudi and the
pact will not lead to substantive issues being blocked. It is not going
to be easy; I am going to fight. There are subjects on which, at least
as far as I understand, they are not of the same mind."
...
Livni said that as the Chair of the Ministerial Committee on
Legislation, she would block the Jewish Nation Law, which is a part of
Likud's agreement with Bayit Yehudi. The law changes the balance between
Israel's "democratic" and "Jewish" nature, and makes it clear that of
the two principles, the definition of the state's Jewish nature is the
more important one.
The law would downgrade the status of the Arabic language as an
official language and would promote construction policies that favor
Jews.
Divide and conquer? Bennett suggests to UTJ to join government without Shas, UTJ blows him off
In a bid to separate United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas, Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett has suggested to UTJ that they join the coalition alone, according to the Haredi website Kikar Shabbat (link in Hebrew). MK Rabbi Yaakov Litzman (above) was offered to keep his position as deputy Health Minister (in a ministry where there is no minister - that's how UTJ always takes portfolios. But UTJ turned it down.
According to Kikar Shabbat, Bennett's motivation is an effort to change his party's image as an enemy of the Torah world. Jewish Home is also looking for a Haredi public relations adviser to assist in an approach to the Haredi community. Bennett also made a video for the Haredi community on Wednesday night.
Let's go to the videotape (sorry, Hebrew only).
Why is Bennett doing this? Recall that UTJ got 17% of the vote in Judea and Samaria, and Shas got another 10%. While I would bet that much of that vote came from the Haredi cities right along the 'green line' (Kiryat Sefer and Beitar), it's likely that there are also a lot of people in those towns who voted for Bennett, and he's afraid that if he pulls all their sons out of the yeshivas, they won't vote for him again.
In the meantime, UTJ Knesset Member Rabbi Meir Porush has challenged Bennett to disclose his understandings with Yair Lapid (link in Hebrew), with respect to maintenance of the religious status quo. Porush argues that much of the national religious public would also like to know what understandings have been reached by Bennett and Lapid, particularly with respect to issues like public transportation on the Sabbath (there currently is none within any city that had a Jewish majority in 1948) and (although this isn't mentioned in the article) civil marriages (currently, the only marriages legally performed in Israel are religious marriages).
Porush is hitting a very sensitive point here. While the Haredi community would flee the organized Rabbinate and run its own sifrei yuchsin (genealogy books) in a second, the national religious community places religious significance on the state itself, and not just on the land. Changes in which the organized Rabbinate was rendered meaningless as an institution would not go over well with the national religious public.
Israel has to be the only country in the world where something as simple as going on standard (as the Americans call it) or winter (as the Israelis and Europeans call it) time is both a political and religious issue.
The bottom line is that we are falling back tonight because most Israelis would (irrationally, in my opinion) prefer that Yom Kippur, which is this coming Tuesday night and Wednesday, be on standard time.
But certain parties on Israel's Left are accusing Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) of making a trick to thwart the change from happening on the first Saturday night in October, two weeks from now. And to be totally honest, Deri and his Shas party have done a lot to fuel these sorts of accusations.
There was no daylight savings time in Israel until 1988. When it was first implemented, it went into effect on the night Passover ended and remained in effect - at Shas' insistence - only until the Saturday night before the Jewish month of Elul began. Why Elul (which started this year in mid-August and will start next year in early August)? Because the Sfardim, who are Shas' constituents, say Slichoth prayers from the beginning of the month of Elul, and while some say them in the morning before sunrise, most say them at Midnight. No, not 12:00 am midnight, but halfway through the night, which is around 12:30 am (daylight or summer time) or 11:30 (standard or winter time) at this time of year. As you might imagine, if you are staying up every night to start Slichoth at 12:30 for about 45-60 minutes, you just might be tired the next day unless your name is Carl in Jerusalem. So.... they pushed for winter time to start by the beginning of Elul.
The next trick the Knesset tried was to make summer time last a minimum number of days. But the Interior Minister was still entitled to determine when it starts, and Shas controlled the Interior Ministry (one of the largest sources of patronage in the country), so they simply made summer time start earlier and earlier in March so that it would end by early September (which upset everyone who wanted the seder night to be on winter time).
Then the Knesset passed a law that said that summer time starts the last week of March, but the date that winter time starts was left open....
Last year, they supposedly passed a law that said that winter time would start the first Saturday night in October, and when I bought my calendar for the new year a few weeks ago, it said that winter time would start October 6. When I asked the Gabbai (basically, the CEO) of our synagogue about this (because the schedule for Slichoth this week only works if sunrise is at 5:30 am and not at 6:30 am), he thought about it, checked with a city councilor, and then told me that yes, we had a problem last Wednesday and Thursday (with two services scheduled in the same room at the same time), but that the clock would change on Saturday night and resolve the issue for the rest of the week. But still, no 'official' word.
Then, on Friday, I heard on the radio that the Interior Minister had 'tricked' the country regarding the start of winter time. And tonight, Israel Radio is reporting that in fact, we are going on winter time tonight.
Right now, it doesn't matter to me a whole lot. You see, I pray at sunrise every day anyway, so tonight I will get just as much sleep as I normally get, even though the clock will say 4:05 am when our Slichoth services start (and I will have an extra hour to study with my son when we finish services tomorrow). But tomorrow night, I will LOSE an hour of sleep if I go to sleep at my normal time.... In the spring, the effect is the opposite.
I really don't care what clock we are on for Yom Kippur. However, I am just as happy to be on winter time for Succoth, which starts on Monday, October 1. That's because I drive to the Old City (of Jerusalem) for sunrise prayers on each of the intermediate days of the holiday, and the police usually close the Old City to non-public traffic at 5:00 am. Not a big deal if sunrise is 5:35, but would create problems if sunrise were 6:35....
In any event, if you're in Israel tonight, set your clocks back an hour at 2:00 am. Someone somewhere is probably happy about it.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, July 30.
1) Written on the subway walls
A few weeks ago posters depicting the purported loss of Palestinian territory to Israel were put up at Metro North stations in the New York area.
The signs appear in commercial space atop recycling bins at train station entrances and on train platforms at 50 Metro-North stations. They were paid for by ex-Wall Street financier Henry Clifford, 84, who now resides in Essex, Conn. He said he financed month-long campaign with $25,000 of his own money. "I am very critical of what Israel has done to the Palestinian people," said Hill, who chairs the 10-member Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, which also has Jewish members. "I'm very critical of our government for supporting Israel and enabling it."
I suppose you may say I'm quibbling, and that in a territory which had a minority of Jews 150 years ago, there has emerged a state of foreigners which has thwarted the emergence of a state of the original population. This, of course, is true. The tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that both sides are right, and both have legitimate claims on the same tiny piece of land. Most of us think that the only way to resolve the conflict is for each side to reconcile itself to the loss of important parts of the territory so that the other side will have room for their national state. As to why this hasn't yet happened, you and I probably disagree. We may also not agree on the details of how the partition ought to be done. Yet those are legitimate issues which need to be resolved in negotiations. The maps you've published, on the other hand, tell a different story: that Israel is purposefully pushing out the Palestinians so as to have the entire land for itself. This is not true, which explains why in order to make the claim the maps need to be so sloppy with the facts. Finally, a note on projection. I never cease to be surprised by Americans, Canadians, Australians or New Zealanders who feel they have a moral right to condemn the Jews for migrating to another land and pushing aside the natives. Surely the Jewish case for moving to the land of their history is vastly better than the case of Europeans moving to continents they had no history in. Over time, however, I've begun to notice that such critics of the Jews assume, perhaps subconsciously, that the behavior of the Jews must by necessity follow the pattern of their own forebears: total dismissal of their common humanity with the natives they're pushing aside, followed by near-total dispossession. This, however, is a complex of the critics, and has very little to do with the Jews.
1. I sympathize with the arguments that the government, acting as service provider, should be able to exclude material that is likely to greatly alienate or offend some of its customers, while still making money from material that won’t have that effect. But the Court has indeed held that viewpoint-based restrictions, even on government property that isn’t a “traditional public forum,” are unconstitutional; and this also makes some sense, given just how much money and property the government owns (especially once one goes beyond just access to physical property, and gets to access to broadly available government benefit programs, such as charitable tax exemptions). Under this doctrine, I think a ban on “demean[ing]” speech about religions, races, and the like is unconstitutionally viewpoint-based, given that positive speech about various groups — or about tolerance, equality, and so on — is allowed. 2. I’m not sure that advertising space should be consider a “designated public forum,” in which strict scrutiny applies to all content-based restrictions, as opposed to a “limited public forum,” in which the government can impose content-based but viewpoint-neutral restrictions. This having been said, the district court points out that Second Circuit precedent (which is binding on federal district courts in New York) treats this very program as a designated public forum. 3. If the space is indeed a designated public forum, then I think even a ban on all disparaging speech would be content-based — when we say that speech is disparaging, we are making a statement about the content of its message, and its communicative impact. What’s more, I think such a ban would even be viewpoint-based, since it targets negative viewpoints about people or groups and not positive viewpoints. So while I think a ban on particular vulgarities would be content-based but viewpoint-neutral, so the government could ban them in a limited public forum, a ban on disparaging speech would be viewpoint-based. ... I therefore think that, both under the district court’s view that the ad program was a designated public forum, and under the view that the ad program was a limited public forum, even the broad ban on demeaning speech about anyone would be unconstitutional.
A few days ago I wrote about some speculation about last week's explosion in Damascus. I quoted an article that cited Mordechai Kedar expressing concern that it was a Jihadist group that was responsible for the attack. Kedar has a critic, who tweeted that the video was made in advance of the event. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar)
FP: What is the significance, apart of the psychological effect, of the assassination of top Syrian security officials last week? Did it really damage the regime's operational capabilities? AY: The assassinations were substantial. Four senior officials were killed. This had a psychological effect, but also a serious operational one. Still, history proves regimes can survive even after stronger strategic setbacks.
Like Yadlin's other answers this is short and to the point. If Yadlin thought that someone other than the rebels were responsible, I'd guess that he'd have mentioned it.
Military experts have long speculated that President Assad’s army, which has been scrambling to crush rebel resistance in urban areas like Homs, Hama and more recently central and southern neighborhoods of Damascus during the uprising, lacked the military resources to take on an armed rebellion in all major cities at once. That seemed to explain the delay in Aleppo, where anticipation of an attack has been building for days. ... But Ms. Nuland also indicated that the United States was not reconsidering its stance against military intervention, saying, “We do not think pouring more fuel onto the fire is going to save lives.” And she drew a sharp distinction between Aleppo and the Libyan city of Benghazi, where fears of a slaughter by government troops led to a NATO bombing campaign that proved decisive in toppling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last year. “The kind of groundswell call for external support that we’ve seen elsewhere is not there,” Ms. Nuland said.
William Tucker believes that the outcome if Aleppo will say something about the balance of power between Assad's troops and the rebels. (h/t Aaron Mannes)
The ground assault by Assad’s forces is imminent, but it should tell us a great deal about the capabilities of both the loyalists and the opposition military forces. Additionally, it will reveal some of the tactics the opposition may employ in other major cities. Keep in mind that opposition forces may withdraw from Aleppo, but that shouldn’t be construed as a defeat for the rebel movements. Rather, it would be a sign that the opposition is continuing to engage regime forces only in battles that can be won. With the Assad regime on the back foot time is favoring the opposition. Each successful strike increases the doubt of the regime loyalists about the viability of the current government and may induce them to defect. For now, the opposition seems content to set the time and place of each engagement with the regime. Aleppo may be a turning point, but it is also likely that the opposition is simply distracting the regime while preparing an assault elsewhere.
3) The bigger schlep
The electoral battle for the pro-Israel vote continues. This week's Mishpacha magazine had an item about the extensive voter registration drive in Israel by Republicans. (The article notes that Obama won about 25 percent of the Israeli American vote in 2008, so this likely has less to do with increasing the percentage of voters, but the number of voters.)
With Gov. Romney's trip to Israel this weekend coverage of the two candidates' views on Israel have received extensive coverage.
“People here feel that [Obama] has not had the level of warmth toward Israel that most presidents have had,” said Abe Katsman, a Jerusalem attorney who serves as counsel to Republicans Abroad Israel. The complaints of Romney backers here center on positions that have put Washington at odds with Netanyahu: an insistence early in Obama’s term on a freeze on Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; a statement that a peace agreement with the Palestinians should be based on Israel’s 1967 boundaries, with “mutually agreed” land swaps; and an approach to Iran that is seen as not tough enough, engaging in protracted diplomacy while warning Israel against a unilateral military strike. “This idea of putting daylight between the U.S. government and Israel — who does that to an ally?” Katsman said. “And why make the disagreement public?”
“The whole point of this trip is Romney has to be here,” said Carl Sherer, a U.S. citizen who has been living in Israel for two decades. “He’s got to be here for us, and Obama just hasn’t been here for us the last three years.” Israel Shonek, 22, an American studying in Israel, said Romney’s visit on the Tisha B’av fasting holiday was “very poignant.” “It’s a very special thing,” Shonek said. “It sends a statement that Obama hasn’t sent to the Jewish people. They haven’t felt this kind of warmth from Obama.”
Of course, there was also a business aspect to the Israeli trip for Romney who held a fundraiser in Jerusalem this morning. Last night, Romney met with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The scene was more like a campaign rally than a solemn place of prayer. Women stood on chairs to peer over the fence that divides them from the men, many of whom clapped and waved as the candidate and his entourage snaked through; people actually praying were pushed to the back as security officers cordoned off a space for the candidate. ... Shepherding Mr. Romney at the wall was J. Philip Rosen, a Manhattan lawyer who owns a home in Jerusalem and helped organize a $50,000-per-couple fund-raiser scheduled for Monday morning. Mr. Rosen said Sunday he expected up to 80 people for the breakfast, up from his estimate on Friday of 20 to 30, because of the influx of Americans. Among those who flew here for the event were the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has vowed to spend $100 million this political season to defeat Mr. Obama and wore a pin that said “Romney” in Hebrew letters; Cheryl Halpern, a New Jersey Republican and advocate for Israel; Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets; John Miller, chief executive of the National Beef Packing Company; John Rakolta, a Detroit real estate developer who led the finance committee for Mr. Romney’s 2008 presidential bid; L. E. Simmons, the owner of a private-equity firm in Texas with ties to the oil industry; Paul Singer, founder of a $20 billion hedge fund; and Eric Tanenblatt, a Romney fund-raiser in Atlanta who had never visited Israel. Scott Romney, the governor’s brother, and Spencer Zwick, his national finance chairman, also were on hand.
Mr. Romney discussed the Arab Spring revolts as a problem rather than progress. He asserted against some evidence that the Obama administration had abandoned an agenda of pushing for democratic reform pursued by George W. Bush, and he characterized even the most moderate and Western-friendly Islamists – those in the political parties leading legislatures in Tunisia and Morocco – as political opponents. The last runs counter to the Obama administration’s strategy, endorsed by some Republicans in Congress, of building alliances with moderate Islamists where possible.
In other words Kirkpatrick's critique consists of arguing that Romney views the Arab spring differently from the way he does. Kirkpatrick views "moderate" Islamists - such as the Muslim Brotherhood - are pragmatic politicians who need to be embraced by the West. Call it the Lord Hylton view, if you will.
In Romney Captures Jerusalem, Barry Rubin highlighted a number of key lines made by Romney in his Jerusalem speech.
Of tremendous importance was Romney’s hint that the weakness of the Obama administration has encouraged extremists to become more aggressive and Iran to be bolder. He never said this directly but mentioned “the ayatollahs in Tehran testing our moral defenses” to see if the West would abandon Israel. Perhaps the speech’s most important line was this one: “We cannot stand silent as those who seek to undermine Israel, voice their criticisms. And we certainly should not join in that criticism.” This is a critique of Obama’s argument that he would persuade the Arabs to end the conflict by distancing the United States from Israel.
Earlier Rubin had noted:
Not allergic to Israel’s center-right. Romney quoted former Prime Minister Menahem Begin twice and referred to “my friend, Bibi Netanyahu.” Obama wouldn’t have cited either man and is known to loathe Netanyahu. Romney and Netanyahu have known each other for years. The Begin quotes were significant: that Israel will never again let its independence be destroyed (a reference perhaps to Israel’s need not to be completely subservient to America’s current president) and that if people say they want to destroy you then believe them (an explicit reference to Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons).
"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel".
First of all that line betrayed an ignorance of Israeli politics. Worse, given that it was foreseeable that a future President Obama might well find himself having to deal with a Likud government, it was unbelievably shortsighted for him to say publicly that he would be opposed to such a government.
And then there is Israel, the most egregious example of Obama’s disregard for traditional allies. Obama came into office explicitly intent on creating “daylight” between himself and Israel, believing that by tilting toward the Arabs, they would be more accommodating. The opposite happened. (Surprise!) When Obama insisted on a building freeze in Jerusalem that no U.S. government had ever demanded and no Israeli government would ever accept, the Palestinian Authority saw clear to become utterly recalcitrant. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas openly told The Post that he would just sit on his hands and wait for America to deliver Israel. Result? Abbas refused to negotiate. Worse, he tried to undermine the fundamental principle of U.S. Middle East diplomacy — a negotiated two-state solution — by seeking unilateral U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood, without talks or bilateral agreements.
The Abbas statement Krauthammer quoted,was from Jackson Diehl interview that foretold Abbas's refusal to negotiate for the bulk of Obama's term. No doubt that the "pro-Likud" statement emboldened Abbas.
“Ambassador Ross was obviously the No. 1 pro-Israel surrogate for the Obama campaign in 2008,” said Josh Block, a former press aide for the Clinton administration and former top spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “The fact that after three years of working on Mideast policy side-by-side with the president, Ambassador Ross has decided to sit out this campaign, unlike other former top officials now at nonpartisan think tanks, will certainly be understood as a message of its own, intentionally or unintentionally.” Ross himself said, “I can give substantive advice to the administration, the president’s campaign, or any campaign that would ask for it. And, of course, when I speak I can talk about my views on policy and I have been supportive of the president’s policy on leading foreign-policy issues.” That’s a departure from Ross’s hands-on work with the Obama administration over the past four years.
Consider what has happened to Israel's strategic position during the course of the Bush administration. In 2001, Iran was not a nuclear power, but it is today. It could not enrich uranium then but it does so now and has already stockpiled several-hundred kilos of low-enriched uranium -- about half of what it would need for its first nuclear bomb. The Bush policy on Iran has failed, and unless the next president can change Iranian behavior, Israel will face an existential threat. It already faces a dramatically different threat from what it faced seven years ago from both Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah now has a veto power over any decision the Lebanese government can make and possesses 40,000 rockets -- and those rockets are not only three times as many as it had only two years ago but are more accurate and have longer range than the ones that hit Israel in the summer of 2006. Hamas has taken over Gaza, creating a miniterror state there and today has over 2,000 rockets. Israel cannot afford four more years of seeing the threats grow against it. It cannot afford four more years of U.S. policies that are tough rhetorically but soft practically. It cannot afford four more years of America being on the sidelines diplomatically.
The cynic in me thinks that George W. Bush was the first president not to employ Ross in some capacity in twenty years and that Ross was looking for a position in the Obama administration. Even so, can Ross say that he's seen anything in the Obama administration has been anything more than "tough rhetorically but soft practically?" My guess is that Ross didn't feel he could sell the Obama administration a second time.
Mondoweiss's headline: Dennis Ross's neutrality shows lobby is with Romney. (I won't link but you can look it up if you wish.) Unfortunately, that doesn't sound a whole lot different from what was reported by the Washington Post early in Ross's tenure, Dennis Ross Faces Big Task on Iran Policy, Including Overcoming Pro-Israel Label.
One of the consequences of the Knesset being dissolved next week is that the Tal Law, which allows Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men to defer their army service as long as they are studying in yeshiva, will remain in effect for 6-8 months until elections can be held (September 4) and a new law can be debated and passed in the new Knesset. Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman is not happy about that. He wants to pass a new law in the four days remaining in this Knesset session. I'm sure it would be well thought out.
Liberman's party planned to bring its plan to a preliminary plenum vote on May 9 and threatened to bring down the coalition if it does not pass. Since May 9 is now expected to be the last day of the 18th Knesset, Yisrael Beytenu would have to pass the bill in its first reading on Monday and push it through an accelerated legislative process so it can become law by Wednesday.
The process cannot be sped up unless the bill is authorized by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday, which is unlikely, as haredi parties and the Likud would have to approve it. Haredi parties oppose requiring their constituents to serve, while the Likud would lose points politically by allowing Yisrael Beytenu's reform to pass.
Another possibility, the foreign minister explained in a Thursday press conference, is to get signatures from 61 MKs, which would require Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin to call a Knesset meeting despite its dissolution.
Liberman called a press conference in the Knesset with leaders of the "Camp Sucker" and "Common Denominator" protest movements, which advocate for universal service and support Yisrael Beytenu's bill.
Boaz Nol and Idan Miller, leaders of the protest groups, called on MKs to pass the legislation before the Knesset is dissolved.
"The silent majority will not allow politicians to postpone this decision again," Nol and Miller said. "We will support any party's proposal, as long as they keep the principle of equality in the burden."
Liberman told Nol and Miller that they can count on signatures from Yisrael Beytenu's 15 MKs, but encouraged them to call members of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, as well as parliamentarians from parties who said they support the protest groups' goals.
...
Later Thursday, MK Einat Wilf (Independence) announced that she would bring her party's proposed alternative to the Tal Law to a vote in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday.
Defense Minister and Independence party leader Ehud Barak submitted an identical ministerial bill, which does not require approval from the committee. Wilf's move is meant to strengthen Barak's bill.
The Independence bill calls for the IDF to decide which 18 year olds should serve in the military. Those who are not recruited by the IDF must perform civilian service for one year.
Shortly after the Supreme Court invalidated the Tal Law, Israel Radio interviewed Rabbi Dov Halbertal. Rabbi Halbertal is a lawyer, and is also considered a confidant of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the leader of the Lithuanian Haredi community (since that interview, Rabbi Elyashiv's health has deteriorated and Rabbi Aryeh Leib Steinman seems to be stepping into his position). He also served in the IDF himself.
Among other things, Rabbi Halbertal said that the Haredi community can only be brought into the army by agreement. He put it starkly: "Do you think that if you surrounded Har Nof (a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem) with three tank brigades that you would recruit anyone into the army? Do you think they would make good soldiers?"
Unfortunately, Israel Radio does not archive recordings for more than a week or two so I cannot share the recording with those of you who speak Hebrew.
40,000 Israelis want to remove God from IDF memorial services
And you wonder why Israel often seems alone in the world.... A petition has been signed by some 40,000 Israelis calling for the removal of God from IDF memorial services.
“We... object to changing the version of “Let the people of Israel remember” with “Let God remember,” the petition reads.
“The original version was written by Berl Katznelson in memory of the fatalities of the Battle of Tel Hai in 1920. Since then to now, this is the “Yizkor” version for Israel's war fatalities. We call on the chief of staff to retain the original “Let the people of Israel remember” version,” writes Bialer.
But that memorial prayer was actually altered in 1967 from Katznelson’s original wording of “Let the people of Israel remember” to “Let God remember” by then-IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who was shocked to discover that the official text used in the army’s ceremonies did not refer to God. Since then, both versions have been in use.
The debate has touched an open nerve in Israeli society. Eli Ben-Shem, head of the Yad Labanim soldiers’ memorial organization, said it received hundreds of phone calls from angry bereaved parents over the past week, hurt by the chief of staff’s decision.
“There are two versions that are used inconsistently,” Ben- Shem explained. “The army should have held an in-depth discussion with us and the Defense Ministry. It seems as though the chief of staff made the decision on an impulse,” he said.
“Yad Labanim will be holding a discussion on the matter next week, but personally I’d try to find common ground for the sides, something unifying that religious and secular families could identify with.
“What really bothers me here is that the chief of staff issued the announcement without holding a discussion, despite the good cooperation between us and the military over the years,” added Ben-Shem. “This is a very sensitive topic that deals with values and issues of principle.”
Besides the Katznelson text, military memorial ceremonies also contain the “God full of mercy” (El Male Rahamim) prayer.
The Yizkor prayer - which calls on God to remember our loved ones - is recited in the synagogue four times per year (the final days of Pesach and Succoth, on Shavuoth and on Yom Kippur). As I understand it, the IDF version is slightly different from what is said in the synagogue, but for the last 44 years has included God.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
