The Ministry of Finance Budgets Division opposes the bill on exemption from military service for haredim, arguing that «this arrangement will not lead to an increase in the number of those conscripted from among the male haredi population, and will not make possible a reduction in the number of reserve duty days affecting the economy and a lowering of the burden on those who serve in the IDF.» In a letter to the legal counsel of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the Budgets Division states that the bill will lead to the loss of tens of billions of shekels to the economy every year and to a heavier burden on reserve soldiers.
Last Thursday, Boaz Bismuth, the chairperson of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, presented a draft of the bill on exemption from conscription for haredim. The bill, the aim of which is «to regularize the status of Yeshiva students,» was presented after approval by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and after the High Court of Justice ruled that, in the absence of a law regularizing exemptions, within 45 days the government must formulate economic and civil sanctions on those who do not comply with call-ups for military service.
Bismuth’s current proposal cancels the requirement in the previous version of the bill for a quota of combat soldiers and sanctions such as the denial of a driving license and a prohibition on exiting the country until age 26 for those who fail to be conscripted.
«The arrangement leads to the immediate restoration of most of the economic benefits currently denied to those obliged to be conscripted in a way that will detract from the incentives to serve in the army,» The Budgets Division writes. «Moreover, we believe that the sanctions mechanism, the purpose of which is to motivate and provide incentives for young haredi men to join the IDF will not achieve its aim, in the light of the use of communal conscription targets, the kinds of sanctions in the arrangement, the timing of the application and expiration of the sanctions, and other lacunae.
«There exists a substantial fear that this arrangement could appear to be a mechanism that includes effective sanctions when in practice it works in the opposite direction, weakening the existing array of incentives and damaging the ability to provide an answer to the IDF’s acute manpower needs. Similarly, included in the arrangement are mechanisms that will harm considerably the integration of the haredi male population in economic activity and in the labor market. As a result, this arrangement has significant negative economic consequences, estimated at tens of billions of shekels annually, and, looking ahead, will have a continuing negative impact on the Israeli economy.»
The Budgets Division mentions that, according to the IDF’s representatives, there is an immediate need to expand the number of men doing compulsory service by 12,000 additional soldiers. These needs are currently met by extensive drafting of reserves, and the monthly cost to the economy of each soldier on reserve duty is NIS 50,000. «The annual economic cost will amount to tens of billions of shekels. This is over and above the heavy costs that have already accumulated from the scope of reserve duty since the beginning of the war, estimated at NIS 120 billion in the loss of economic activity and over NIS 70 billion in direct budgetary costs of financing reserve service,» the letter states.
Published by Globes, Israel business news — en.globes.co.il — on December 2, 2025.
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