The Sydney Morning Herald Digital Edition: Israeli court axes military exemption

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The Sydney Morning Herald Digital Edition: Israeli court axes military exemption

This article is from the February 24 issue of The Sydney Morning Herald Digital Edition. To subscribe for $4.50 a week, visit http://smh.com.au/digitaledition. Ethan Bronner JERUSALEM: The Israeli Supreme Court has invalidated a law that exempted from military service ultra-Orthodox Jews engaged in religious studies, adding a new urgency to the government’s negotiations with religious parties over a more equitable distribution of the burdens of citizenship. The 6-to-3 decision, handed down late on Tuesday, declared the Tal Law unconstitutional at a time of growing tension over the place of the ultra-Orthodox . The law, in effect since 2002, granted exemptions to tens of thousands of religious academy students. It was widely viewed as a failure and the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had already said it would not be renewed when it expired this summer. Still, the ruling will force the government to come up with a new way forward, one that will be strongly resisted by religious party coalition members.

The departing Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch, writing for the court majority, said the law had failed to live up to its aim of increasing the number of ultra-Orthodox in the army. Using data presented by the army, the decision noted that last year fewer than 1300 ultra-Orthodox youths had enlisted out of a pool of 8500, a rate of 15 per cent. Among the rest of the Jewish population, the enlistment rate is 75 per cent. The place of the ultra-Orthodox , also known as the Haredim – those who tremble before God – has long been controversial , but the issue has heated up in recent months. The Haredim do not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state before the arrival of the Messiah and believe that the primary task of men should be studying Torah. Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 per cent of the population, are also exempted from the military, although that, too, has come under increased scrutiny, with growing calls for them to perform some form of national service. On Wednesday politicians – except the ultra-Orthodox – praised the decision. The Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said: ‘‘ After 10 years, the Tal Law has not met expectations at all, and has not led to any change in terms of equal sharing of the burden and enlarging the circle of participants in civil duties.’’ Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Kadima Party, said: ‘‘ Social justice comes from equal sharing of the burden.’’ The New York Times
Copyright © 2012 The Sydney Morning Herald

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The Sydney Morning Herald Digital Edition: Israeli court axes military exemption