The Draft Tragicomedy

If it weren't so sad, the draft brouhaha would be the greatest show in town. It is a masquerade ball, a tragicomedy in which each actor says the complete opposite of what he really wants.

The main actor, the IDF, is practically invisible. He doesn't dare speak the truth, which happens to be terribly politically incorrect. The truth is that the IDF really does not want the Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox). Not because they are not good people: Simply because as it is, the army has too much manpower. The last thing it needs is to deal with tens of thousands of new recruits with special dietary requirements and the like for which the army is unprepared. Two separate committees (one appointed by the head of the IDF's General Headquarters) the Ben Basat Committee and the Shefer Committee have already studied the issue and recommended reducing conscription. But to tell the truth to the feminists demanding to draft women into combat units and to the "pushovers" demanding a full-scale draft for the Haredim would force the IDF top brass to exercise a rare character trait: courage on public issues.



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http://www.jewishisrael.org/eng_contents/articles/72/articleA7219.html