-- Minister Moshe Arbel
Arbel is generally a serious and hardworking minister, and not normally excitable or populist, but this is an excellent troll...
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The army has to decide if it's there to defend the country, be a big melting pot so boys and girls from all parts of Israeli society can come together and develop a sense of national unity, or both.
ReplyDeleteBecause if it's just there to defend the country, frankly you don't need so much manpower anymore. As much as he was wrong about everything else, Ehud Barak's "smart and small army" concept was the right one. Israel isn't planning on any large scale occupations where it'll need thousands of troops to control and partrol large swathes of enemy territory. Its biggest enemy is only confrontable by air. If that's the case, then drafting the Chareidi youth, many of whom will react by becoming passive-aggressive annoyances hell-bent on destroying army morale, is a waste of time.
the only problem is that with a mandatory draft you can just grant a blanket exemption to such a large community. if they decide to cancel the mandatory draft and go to a volunteer army (as Eichler has been promoting for years), then sure, but you cant just have a mandatory draft and tell 10-15% of the country that we are going to let you off the hook
DeleteI have a feeling that if the draft is cancelled the IDF will become even more religious than it is now.
DeleteJust in fairness, the Azrieli Mall is actually connected to the Defense Ministry, which is full of soldiers doing real jobs but which are of the sort that they can take the bridge to the mall to have lunch.
But you can can have a universal draft and divert towards national service for most.
ReplyDeleteHaredi leadership refuses to accept national service as an option. they consider it equal to army service.
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