IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has sent a strongly worded letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warning against a proposed amendment to the Defense Service Law that would freeze the arrest of draft evaders.
In the letter, Zamir cautioned that the measure could undermine the trust of serving soldiers in the military and damage the IDF's ability to recruit additional personnel. He stressed that the army's professional position, presented to the committee by the head of the Manpower Planning and Administration Division, opposes the proposal in its entirety.
According to Zamir, the legislation would not increase enlistment but instead encourage people to avoid military service. "The proposal provides an incentive for failure to report for military service, since it comes with exemption from indictment and criminal proceedings," he wrote. "In this way, the proposal is not aligned with the needs of the IDF, in a clear and unambiguous manner."
A central point of the IDF's opposition is a provision that would establish a committee of three senior officers to review declarations submitted by yeshiva students and determine whether they qualify for the legal status granting exemption from service.
Zamir argued that the proposed committee would harm morale and public confidence in the military, particularly as the IDF continues to rely on extensive reserve call-ups and extended mandatory service to meet operational demands during the ongoing war.
"It is not possible for the military system headed by me, which demands from its personnel unprecedented sacrifice, to be simultaneously committed to granting mass exemptions from indictment," Zamir wrote. He warned that such a policy would deepen divisions within the military and increase perceptions of inequality among those who have carried the burden of the fighting over the past two and a half years.
The chief of staff also argued that the IDF lacks the expertise to determine eligibility under the proposed law, noting that the process would involve verifying declarations rather than conducting substantive reviews. He further warned that assigning the military responsibility for administering such a controversial bureaucratic process during wartime would divert leadership attention and resources away from operational missions.
Zamir called on the political leadership to remove the proposed officers' committee from the legislation entirely, arguing that the mechanism is incompatible with the IDF's operational needs and responsibilities during the ongoing conflict.