A Knesset committee debate over legislation governing military service exemptions for yeshiva students collapsed into a shouting match on Sunday, forcing the committee's chairman to call a recess after the session grew too heated to continue.
The bill under discussion, known as the security service law, is intended to formalize the status of yeshiva students and halt the arrest of draft evaders. It has drawn fierce opposition from lawmakers outside the governing coalition. The flashpoint came when Construction and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, who chairs the United Torah Judaism party, told the committee that the military currently has enough soldiers serving.
The remark drew immediate anger from opposition lawmakers. Yesh Atid MK Meirav Cohen confronted Goldknopf with casualty figures from the war, asking what more he needed after the chief of staff and the head of the IDF's Personnel Directorate had already addressed the committee, and noting that the current war alone has produced 26,000 wounded. She pressed the committee on who would replace them.
MK Oded Forer then joined the confrontation, using sharp language as he accused Goldknopf of drawing a distinction between different children's blood, telling him directly that his own children's blood was no more red than anyone else's.
With the room in disarray, committee chairman MK Ofir Katz determined that the session could not continue and called a recess until 11:30 a.m. in an attempt to calm tensions. The debate took place against the backdrop of continued tension over haredi enlistment, days after separate stormy Knesset committee discussions over the Basic Law on Torah study.
During the session, Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik raised serious objections to the legislative process itself, telling the committee that her concerns went well beyond a standard objection over introducing new subject matter, and that in her view the process was improper. She said the committee had held 40 sessions under MK Yuli Edelstein's chairmanship and another 46 under MK Boaz Bismuth, and that a single narrow clause had been extracted from that lengthy process while the rest was discarded, calling the resulting problem more serious than a typical procedural objection. She added that time pressure did not justify an improper legislative process, and that a bill changing substantially between its first reading and preparation for second and third readings reflected a flawed process.
Shas MK Yinon Azoulai defended the legislation, saying the amendments the coalition made create full equality under which everyone would be obligated to enlist. He said the bill calls for freezing arrests, while sanctions would continue to apply under the framework the High Court of Justice set at the request of the attorney general. Azoulai argued that recruiting haredim would become easier once public hostility toward the community eases, which he said is what the law is designed to achieve, and said lawmakers are entitled to legislate even as a bill's substance changes along the way. He said the law would apply only to those whose vocation is Torah study, and that anyone not studying in yeshiva should enlist in the IDF.
Deputy Knesset Legal Adviser Miri Frankel-Shor stressed the importance of anchoring sanctions in the legislation itself. She told the committee that 86 sessions had been held on the bill, during which her office worked to mediate between the sides, and that any resolution needed to rest on two pillars, enlistment targets aligned with the law's purpose and economic sanctions. She said there is a significant difference between economic sanctions imposed under a High Court order and those anchored in Knesset legislation, and that it was essential for the Knesset to enshrine both pillars in the bill.
The session reflects escalating tension over haredi enlistment as the coalition and opposition remain at odds over the legislation's future. Further updates are expected as the committee reconvenes.
