Attorney General Warns Coalition Draft-Evader Freeze Is Sectoral Exemption

The Attorney General's office told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday morning July 12 that the coalition's proposed freeze on criminal proceedings and arrest warrants against Haredi draft evaders remains unconstitutional and grants what amounts to a sectoral exemption from security service without balancing safeguards. The advisory, delivered as chairman Boaz Bismuth prepares to shepherd the bill toward second and third readings before Knesset dissolution on July 17, argues the mechanism drifts from essential conscription principles and worsens the inequality the Supreme Court has repeatedly ordered the state to remedy. Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon has predicted the High Court would strike the arrangement down. The bill would suspend enforcement for five months, replacing the earlier 90-day window, and forms one plank of the coalition's pre-dissolution legislative push alongside Basic Law: Torah Study and a narrower attorney-general bill.