Israel Hofsheet has demanded that the IDF overhaul its criminal prosecution policy for draft evaders, arguing in a letter warning of a possible High Court petition that the army treats soldiers and reservists who fail to report for service more harshly than those who never enlist at all.
The letter, dated Tuesday and sent on behalf of the organization by attorney Ran Cohen Rochverger, a former chief military defense attorney, asks Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, Military Advocate-General Maj.-Gen. Itai Ofir, and the head of the High Court department in the State Attorney’s Office, to conduct a “fundamental and renewed” review of the military prosecution’s policy for indicting draft evaders.
The demand comes days before the state must update the High Court of Justice, by June 1, on steps taken to enforce the duty to draft ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men, including through criminal enforcement.
It also comes as the IDF warns of a worsening wartime manpower shortage, with thousands of combat soldiers missing from the ranks and regular and reserve soldiers repeatedly carrying the burden of the war.
The High Court has already expressed deep dissatisfaction with the state’s enforcement of its haredi draft rulings. In an April hearing, justices pressed the state over the lack of proactive enforcement in haredi population centers and questioned whether draft evaders were being meaningfully detained or merely given additional notices to report.
Israel Hofsheet narrows dispute on IDF policy
Israel Hofsheet’s new argument narrows the dispute from the broader political fight over haredi enlistment to a more specific claim: that the IDF’s own criminal enforcement policy is discriminatory.
According to the letter, under current military prosecution guidelines, a regular soldier who deserts can generally be indicted after more than 100 days of absence. A person who reports to the induction base but leaves before being placed in a unit can generally be indicted after 180 days. A reservist who fails to report under an emergency call-up can face criminal proceedings from the first day of absence.
By contrast, the letter says, a draft evader who never reports to the IDF at all generally faces indictment only after 540 days - a year and a half - of absence. The letter says that some 76,000 people are currently classified as draft evaders or subject to draft orders, around 80% of whom are haredi.
That 540-day threshold is the core of Israel Hofsheet’s demand.
The organization argues that the current policy turns military enforcement “on its head”: the more a person has already entered the system, served, or contributed, the faster the army acts against him when he fails to report; the more completely a person avoids the system from the outset, the longer he is spared criminal proceedings.
The letter stresses that this is not a matter requiring new legislation or a cabinet decision. It argues that the indictment threshold is set in the chief military prosecutor’s guidelines and can be changed by the military prosecution itself, under the authority of the Military Advocate-General and, where relevant, the Attorney-General.
State policy intends to toughen policy on 'draft evaders'
The letter also says the state previously told the High Court it intended to toughen the policy by lowering the indictment threshold for draft evaders from 540 days to 365 days, effective April 30. Israel Hofsheet claims that the change has not been implemented. In any event, the organization argues, even a one-year threshold would still be inadequate during wartime.
A full year before criminal enforcement begins, the letter argues in substance, cannot be treated as a serious response while reservists are being called up again and again, and regular soldiers are stretched to the limit.
The IDF’s manpower crisis has become one of the central pressures behind the haredi draft fight. Defense officials have warned that combat units could face a severe shortage by the end of the year, while the army is operating across multiple arenas and relying heavily on repeated reserve service.
The organization also argues that the indictment policy cannot be separated from the arrest policy. Lowering the threshold on paper, it says, will not ensure equal enforcement if the state continues to avoid making meaningful arrests in practice in the population where most draft evasion is concentrated.
The letter calls for the IDF to lower the criminal indictment threshold for draft evaders substantially, at least to the 180-day threshold applied to those who report to the induction base and then leave. Israel Hofsheet argues that there is no justification for treating those who never report more leniently than those who report and then desert.
At its heart, the demand reframes the haredi draft dispute as a question not only of how many haredi men are drafted, or whether the government is complying with High Court rulings, but whether the army’s own enforcement system treats those who serve less fairly than those who do not serve at all.