IDF, Chareidim, and Unintended Consequences - Part 2

Disclaimer

The views of our Guest Bloggers -- including those of Douglas Aronin -- do not necessarily reflect the views of Nishma. Rather, we post them to spark reflection and discussion
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Guest Blogger:

Douglas Aronin, Esq.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the function of the IDF is to defend the State of Israel against its all- too-numerous enemies.  Although, like any human institution, it is unavoidably imperfect, the IDF has on the whole performed its function exceptionally well throughout Israel's turbulent existence as a modern nation state.  Israel continues to face -- and the IDF must be prepared to confront -- numerous serious threats to Israel's security, among them Iranian nukes, Syrian unrest, Egyptian instability, attempts by meddling foreigners to break the blockade of Gaza and potential missile attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel will surely be better served if the IDF's senior staff spends its time and effort  figuring out how to counter these threats rather than focusing on how to overcome the obstacles to the integration of chareidi soldiers into mainstream army units.

There is a chareidi problem in Israel, but the draft exemption is a symptom of that problem, not its cause. The essence of the problem is that chareidim and secular Israelis increasingly live on what sometimes seem to be different planets. They perceive the world from wildly different ideological perspectives and view  each other with suspicion  if not contempt.  They speak (figuratively and sometimes literally) diferent languages.

Many chareidim believe that the push to draft chareidi yeshiva students is a ploy, that the real intention is to create a mechanism for pressuring chareidi youths to abandon their faith.   This belief may seem paranoid to most secularists, but from a chareidi perspective it's understandable.  The draft exemption is not the only issue on which secular Israelis have directed increased anger toward the chareidim of late. Collectively, these issues understandably appear to the chareidim to be a coordinated attack on their way of life.  The secularists' argument that all citizens should share the burden of defending the State will continue to ring hollow to chareidim unless the issue of army service by Israel's Arab citizens is also addressed.

The issue of the yeshiva draft exemption has never been primarily about the IDF's manpower needs.  From the secular perspective, it has been about the responsibility of citizens to share equitably the burden of defending the State while to the chareidim it has been about government encroachment on what they see as a religiously mandated way of life.  What makes this issue so volatile is that it grows out of an atmosphere of mutual distrust in which neither side believes that the other is being honest about its motivations.

Those secular Israelis inclined to dismiss chareidi distrust as a product of paranoia should at the very least ponder the implications of current demographic trends.  Simply put, the chareidi birthrate is significantly higher than the birthrate of the rest of Israel's Jewish population as a whole. If that trend continues, chareidi political power is likely to grow, regardless of what changes to the electoral system may be adopted. Alleviating the mutual distrust and integrating the chareidim, to the extent possible, into Israel's economic life should be an urgent priority, but it  is neither the function nor the expertise of the military. The IDF needs to handle any influx of chareidi soldiers in a manner that would be as respectful as possible of chareidi religious life while causing a minimum of disruption to the IDF's military mission. And other Israeli government agencies and nongovernmental organizations need to address the larger issue of improving relations between Israel's chareidi and secular populations

Douglas Aronin