'We Will Enlist and Die' vs 'We Will Die and Not Enlist'
Secular Israelis can be forgiven for fuming at ultra-Orthodox Jews' disdain for equality when it comes to the draft, but their own willingness to die in vain in a foolish war is even worse
Facing the ultra-Orthodox commandment "We will die and not enlist" is the secular Zionist one: "We will enlist and die."
The notion that the secular commandment is the more moral of the two points to a moral distortion. Both commandments are flawed, but not equally so. "We will die and not enlist" infuriates every secular Israeli Jew, but "We will enlist and die" ought to infuriate every person of conscience.
It is possible, of course, to justify the secular anger toward the ultra-Orthodox. They have earned it honestly. The ultra-Orthodox approach is one of disrupting equality, whereas equality is the most important foundation of democracy. The Haredim come from a starting point of condescension, imagining for themselves a false world in which the study of Torah is important to anyone besides themselves and convinced that by virtue of this activity they are not required to be a part of any national effort. This inequality cries out to the heavens.
Opposing them is the secular commandment to be drafted into the military, not only as a national duty and a necessary evil, but also to score brownie points. Military service is associated with positive values, with Zionism and even with morality. Anyone who does not enlist is immoral. Nothing could be more perverse.
Secular Israelis should bow their heads before the opposite camp. Their own commandment is even more problematic, and they have much to learn from the ultra-Orthodox. Israel's center-left has never waged a determined and united struggle like the Haredi battle against conscription.
The state is in ruins. Fascism, apartheid and corruption are rampant and secular Jews in Israel continue to proudly carry the banner of mandatory military service – nearly the only one they carry, other than "anyone but Bibi."
The Haredim appear to be serious about dying rather than enlisting, while the opposite camp is willing to die not only for their country but also for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all of his military caprices.
There is something immoral about a willingness to die in vain in a foolish war. The past two and a half years have proved that recruits are willing to carry out any mission blindly. To them, the sanctity of enlistment surpasses all other values – and they call this "principled."
The soldier who executed a 7-month-old baby in Hebron on Friday is considered more highly principled than any draft-dodging yeshiva student. Is he in fact more moral? After he is discharged from the military he will be capable of doing anything he wants in civilian life as well.
The pilot who bombs hospitals in Lebanon indiscriminately, the commander who locked down the city of Hebron last week, the bulldozer operator who flattened Gaza and before moving to southern Lebanon and the artillery operator who continues to shell civilian targets without purpose are not more moral than a draft-dodging yeshiva student. In what way are they more moral? In their blind obedience to blatantly illegal orders?
Of course the yeshiva students aren't evading the draft because of the criminal nature of military operations in the past few years, which consist mainly of maintaining, deepening and expanding the occupation. But to laud those who do it?
No one disputes the need for the army, but we should be much more worried by the fact that the war crimes of the Israel Defense Forces have not prompted the vast majority of recruits to consider the morality of their enlistment than we are about the non-enlistment of the Haredim. What exactly are young Israelis being drafted to do? To kill children throwing stones in the West Bank, to raid homes in the dead of night and abduct their inhabitants from their beds, to bomb schools in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon.
No liberal should want to see the rioters who stormed the home of Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg drafted and serving in the occupied territories. The Haredi community, which has made common cause in recent years with ultranationalism and racism and also with the settler movement, will produce terrible soldiers, the kind that we will never want to see serving in the military.
The settlers took over the IDF and changed its character; if the Haredim are drafted, they will distort it even more. No thanks. We have enough with the regional defense battalions, composed of settlers.