The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s events as they unfold.
Haredi draft exemption bill expected to cancel already-sent enlistment orders — report
The bill being formulated by the coalition to regulate ultra-Orthodox enlistment to the army — while exempting most in the community — is expected to be retroactive and thus cancel thousands of draft orders that have been sent out in recent months, Channel 13 news reports.
Negotiations for the new bill have been held in recent months after the High Court of Justice ruled that the blanket exemption for most Haredim is unconstitutional and ordered the end of government subsidies for ultra-Orthodox daycares for families where a parent is meant to enlist.
Most ultra-Orthodox view enlistment to the IDF as going against their lifestyle, fearing young adults will be secularized there. The mostly impoverished society largely relies on government subsidies for daycares and yeshivas.
Channel 13 reports that Defense Minister Israel Katz has met and reached initial understandings with Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the head of the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, who has insisted on advancing a law that causes thousands of Haredim to enlist, complicating relations with ultra-Orthodox coalition parties.
According to the reported understandings, the bill will set recruitment goals for the army, rather than quotas, meaning the responsibility to meet the goals will be on the army rather than on the draftees. These goals will rise every year, until they reach half of the Haredi men eligible for enlistment.
The network adds that there are still disagreements, however. While Katz wants to stick to the number of 3,000 draftees that the military has said it can absorb in the first and second years, Edelstein is demanding a higher number to meet the IDF’s needs. Another reported disagreement has do to with the severity of the sanctions imposed on yeshivas where students’ enlistment rates don’t meet the goal.
Report: PM tried to move his testimony in graft trial to a place that isn’t a court
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides have unsuccessfully tried to move the premier’s testimony in his corruption trial to a place that isn’t a court, Channel 13 news reports.
The outlet quotes an unnamed source familiar with the details as asserting that Netanyahu is trying to avoid being photographed taking the stand.
The report says the testimony will likely take place at the Tel Aviv District Court.
The trial is being overseen by the Jerusalem District Court, which doesn’t have a safe room, complicating security arrangements for the testimony, which will start December 10 and is expected to last several weeks.
Report: If policy to end administrative detention for settlers is implemented, prosecutors won’t defend it
If a newly announced policy to only use administrative detention against Palestinians is implemented, the State Attorney’s Office will reportedly no longer be able to defend the use of the controversial legal tool that enables the detention of individuals without charge for up to six months at a time.
New Defense Minister Israel Katz announced last week that he was ending such orders against West Bank settlers.
While the practice is primarily deployed against Palestinians, it is also used against some extremist Jewish Israelis, which has drawn increasing criticism of the ruling Likud party by far-right coalition members. The detentions can be renewed indefinitely while allowing military prosecutors to keep suspects from being able to see the evidence against them.
At a recent meeting hosted by State Attorney Amit Aisman, it was decided that it is currently possible to defend the existing administrative detention orders against Palestinians, including some Israeli Arab citizens, since it can be argued that the new policy is merely a political statement that hasn’t had any effect in the field, the i24News outlet reports.
According to the unsourced report, “the understanding” within Aisman’s office is that if Katz’s declaration is implemented, it would be impossible to legally defend orders that by definition are only issued against certain groups of the population.
Aisman declines to respond to the report.
Chances of war resuming in Lebanon are 50%, some defense officials said to estimate
Some in Israel’s security establishment are estimating the chances of a resumption of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon at 50%, according to the Ynet news site.
The report says this is one of the reasons the government is yet to call on the tens of thousands of displaced residents of the north to return to their homes.
“The more the rules and their enforcement are clear from the get-go, the better they will hold up later,” the outlet quotes an unnamed IDF officer as saying.