We have already written, and will continue to do so, that the entire subject and 'need' of drafting chareidim into the army — aside from the fact that Torah study is the very base of survival of the Jewish people — is altogether fictitious, lacking any substance and reality. The army does not want chareidim, period.
Perhaps it does need soldiers — so long as they are not chareidim. And even if they started off as chareidim, the army will see to it that they forget about it very quickly. Here and there you may find 'nature reserves' of soldiers who define themselves as such but that is merely a camouflage for the army's purposes. It needs such soldiers to display to the outside as if they really and truly want chareidim, that is, so long as they don't really 'see' them. So long as they remain a negligible minority and can be dealt with, one way or another.
But beyond that, the army is not prepared to compromise its principles of licentious freedom. So, all in all, it is mere empty prattle.
In a discussion which took place in the Knesset Foreign and Security Committee on the subject of military service, a soldier representing IDF chareidi wounded soldiers, spoke from the very blood of his heart, very acute words regarding the army's total disregard of said soldiers.
He said: "I hear discussions; I read headlines; I keep tabs of the law from all angles — but there is one thing which I haven't heard mentioned even once: the wounded. Not in the law nor in dialogues: the injured, as if they didn't even exist. The army is privy to nit-picking details such as where each boy went to school from the age of 14, what he eats, what kashrus he observes, but when that youngster is drafted, and is wounded, the country looks the other way and is not even interested in their numbers.
"Forget about rehabilitation or medical care. Even the very fact that we exist is too much for the State and the system to concern itself with."
This is not a technical shortcoming but simply a total systematic dissociation with harsh ramifications: the wounded are left in the dark, ignored; families crumple, with no course of rehabilitation tailored to the chareidi public. There are mixed (men and women) therapeutic groups which cannot be joined, workout gyms and rehab activities, all mixed.
"There are no therapy opportunities, simply none. And then they come and demand: more enlistment, more numbers, without stopping for a moment to ask what will be if any of the new conscripts is injured? How can you demand more enlistment from the chareidi public, when those who have already 'shared the burden' are completely erased from the files?"
We already know the answers. The chareidim interest the army like an onion peel. They interest politicians like a rubbed out penny. Many just utilize the army as a digging spade for their personal purposes to garner votes. They interest the religious nationalists, the useful idiots of the Israeli Left in its process to dismember the Right. They don't really interest the army which has no desire to deal with mitzvah-observers of any kind who come to execute their 'obligation' to 'share the burden.'
