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Jul 1, 2012
Serving In The IDF For Only A Month Would Solve The Haredi Draft Problem
The news in Israel these days is dominated by the issue of the possibility of drafting the haredim into the IDF. The Plesner Committee, having been given the task of finding a solution to the annulment of the Tal Law, has been conducting meetings for the past month of so, and has been trying to come to a reasonable solution. They are due to publish their decision in the very near future.
There is a lot of speculation as to what they will recommend, as well there being a lot of talk about what would be good solution and what would be a bad solution. Much of that discussion revolves around numbers - what percentage of the haredi community could be drafted, whats too high, too low, etc.? Another major factor discussed is what would happen if someone avoided the draft as per the new rules - would he be arrested as being AWOL? Would the yeshiva he is in be punished with cut funding? Would he lose stipends?
Here is an interesting proposal made by Moshe Feiglin, dealing with none of those issues. His solution almost would not have such problems to deal with, i would venture to say. I will say in advance that I have no idea if the plan is a good one, or even a feasible one - but it is intriguing. Feiglin gives a lot of numbers to support his suggestion, but I have no idea what's accurate and what is being misused, so I will avoid dealing in that.
Feiglin has been a proponent of canceling the mandatory draft and creating a volunteer army. Anyone volunteering for the army would have to go through a process after which the army would then select which volunteers qualify and which do not (like any job interview). The soldiers accepted into the army would be paid well and given good social standing.
The new part of Feiglin's plan is the one that will solve the Haredi and Arab issue.
Feiglin proposes that all Jews would be made into soldiers, and would receive some sort of basic training - from a few days to a month as is needed. This training would be conducted during people's vacation times - university students would go for their [up to a] month-long training training during their vacation and yeshiva students would get their [up to a] month-long training during their bein hazmanim. And anybody else in a different system would get their training scheduled for their vacation period.
I guess if everyone only had to serve a month, and it was during bein hazmanim when the yeshiva boys aret learning anyway, Feiglin is assuming most people would be fine with that.
After that, everyone just trained would be released. They would only be called to serve in case of an emergency situation, and would be called for guard duty or for the Home Front needs, or whatever might be necessary in a time deemed to be an emergency situation.
Then, people who wish to be soldiers in the IDF would be able to volunteer to be a part of the professional army. The IDF would have its choice of candidates, and those selected would be trained including education and academic degrees, they'd be paid a good salary and would be given a good social standing.
(source: NRG)
As I said, I have no idea if this would work of it is even feasible. I also don't know if Feiglin's assumption, that the haredi community would be ok with this, is accurate - they still might see it as a gzeiras shmad even if it is for just a month. But it is a new and intriguing proposal.
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There is a lot of speculation as to what they will recommend, as well there being a lot of talk about what would be good solution and what would be a bad solution. Much of that discussion revolves around numbers - what percentage of the haredi community could be drafted, whats too high, too low, etc.? Another major factor discussed is what would happen if someone avoided the draft as per the new rules - would he be arrested as being AWOL? Would the yeshiva he is in be punished with cut funding? Would he lose stipends?
Here is an interesting proposal made by Moshe Feiglin, dealing with none of those issues. His solution almost would not have such problems to deal with, i would venture to say. I will say in advance that I have no idea if the plan is a good one, or even a feasible one - but it is intriguing. Feiglin gives a lot of numbers to support his suggestion, but I have no idea what's accurate and what is being misused, so I will avoid dealing in that.
Feiglin has been a proponent of canceling the mandatory draft and creating a volunteer army. Anyone volunteering for the army would have to go through a process after which the army would then select which volunteers qualify and which do not (like any job interview). The soldiers accepted into the army would be paid well and given good social standing.
The new part of Feiglin's plan is the one that will solve the Haredi and Arab issue.
Feiglin proposes that all Jews would be made into soldiers, and would receive some sort of basic training - from a few days to a month as is needed. This training would be conducted during people's vacation times - university students would go for their [up to a] month-long training training during their vacation and yeshiva students would get their [up to a] month-long training during their bein hazmanim. And anybody else in a different system would get their training scheduled for their vacation period.
I guess if everyone only had to serve a month, and it was during bein hazmanim when the yeshiva boys aret learning anyway, Feiglin is assuming most people would be fine with that.
After that, everyone just trained would be released. They would only be called to serve in case of an emergency situation, and would be called for guard duty or for the Home Front needs, or whatever might be necessary in a time deemed to be an emergency situation.
Then, people who wish to be soldiers in the IDF would be able to volunteer to be a part of the professional army. The IDF would have its choice of candidates, and those selected would be trained including education and academic degrees, they'd be paid a good salary and would be given a good social standing.
(source: NRG)
As I said, I have no idea if this would work of it is even feasible. I also don't know if Feiglin's assumption, that the haredi community would be ok with this, is accurate - they still might see it as a gzeiras shmad even if it is for just a month. But it is a new and intriguing proposal.
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haredim,
IDF,
Moshe Feiglin
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Is it so hard to understand that people do not want to enlist? Offer adequate pay to those who are interested, and leave alone everyone else, be them haredim, hilonim, arabs, or you-name-it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that would work if we would withdraw from the territories, thereby eliminating the need for soldiers to patrol many kilometers of roads, and dozens of settlements in isolated areas. Oh, but there's also the small problem of patrolling the border with Egypt and Gaza, and the border with Jordan, as well. And the other small problem of identifying and rounding up terrorists and potential terrorists throughout Judea and Samaria - I suppose if we withdrew, we wouldn't have to do that anymore, but then we'd have the very long border with the state of Palestine to patrol.
ReplyDeleteOr could it be that Feiglin views a volunteer army as an army that would be easier to manipulate, and eventually use as a tool to take control of the state, as opposed to a broadly-based citizen army? Just food for thought.
Sorry but that is a terrible idea.. When will people actually be allowed to go on vacation!? And does he really think that training people for just 1 month (unless he means one month every year) think it's going to help the army?
ReplyDeleteAlso, why do all these people who claim to want to follow halacha suggest a volunteer army? It makes no sense! Should we also now start allowing Christians to missionize anybody they like?
I agree that it's a terrible idea, but I'm not sure I see the contradiction between following a halacha and a volunteer army, or the connection with Christian missionizing - could you elaborate?
Deleteanon - please explain. I dont understand how this is connected to christians missionizing.
ReplyDeletehis idea is that everyone will be trained with the basics, which can be learned in up to a month of training. maybe there would even be refresher sessions every now and then. after the basics there would be no need, as the regular soldiers would be paid soldiers who want to be there (aka volunteers) and would be professionaly trained as full soldiers
Freedom of expression.
DeleteThe halacha mandates a non-volunteer army, with some exceptions for certain people. Asking for a volunteer army, is basically trying to emulate America/the West for the sake of emulating America/the west. If you want a free market for things such as the Army, then the next step is to have a free market of ideas as well. This means, you allow freedom of speech, and this means you allow Christian missionizing.
And I just want to state again, that asking for a month training during vacation, when they only have a limited number of months for vacation to begin with, is insanity.
It's a bad idea because while he says that it wouldn't be like the US Army, he doesn't explain how. All the incentives he suggests are the kind of things that would ensure that the IDF only gets people from the lowest socio-economic groups. You need look no further than the Israel Police to get an idea what we'd have with the IDF.
ReplyDeletecompletely agree. US army sucks. They just send poor people to die and rich people stay behind and study and get richer. I think it would be terrible to have here.
DeleteMoreover, the United States has a much larger pool of manpower from which to draw, and more money (even if borrowed) to pay the increasingly high incentive bonuses required to recruit the necessary numbers of soldiers.
ReplyDeleteI think it's worth noting that through much of American history, there was a great reluctance to maintain a standing, professional army. This was motivated partly by financial considerations, but also by a suspician that a professional standing army could be used as a tool against democracy. For that reason, the United States preferred to maintain local militias made up of ordinary citizens. Only the rise of the US as a superpower after WWII rendered a large standing army a necessity, and democracy is so well established in the US that the earlier fear of a standing army came to seem irrelevant. I do not think Israel has reached that point yet, if it ever will. I fear that Feiglin may have the same idea for the army that he has for Likud - a gradual takeover from within, in a way that could undermine the right and duty of the democractically elected government to control the army.
very interesting Baruch. thanks.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, think about the impact the 'professionalism' of the US military has had on the way it's perceived by different groups in the American public. In Israel, everyone identifies with the military, except Charedim and Arabs. In the US, there are large groups that are deeply antagonistic towards the military, to the point where certain universities have cancelled their ROTC programs. Basically, the US military is the province of the conservative right and some poor blacks and Hispanics. Can you imagine if the IDF found itself out of the consensus in Israel?
DeleteFeiglin's idea makes lots of sense. To summarize his points: Currently, a rather small portion of the male population serves for a full three years, and a rather small portion of the male population does important service (with a significant overlap between the two groups). Rather than subjecting more men to the draft and creating more legions of jobniks, why not limit mandatory service to basic training, with a professional army filling the important roles. Would people still be lining up for tzanhanim in absence of a draft? We can only speculate. But it's not a crazy idea.
ReplyDeleteThe volunteer army idea won't get too many applicants. To wit, we're living in a society where a group of people refer to themselves as "friars" for having done the army, and no one seems to have any problem with considering someone who serves the country to be a friar.
ReplyDelete