Urgent Appeal to IDF Chief and Attorney General: “Stop the Selective Enforcement Against Sephardic Yeshiva Students”
As the IDF resumes arrests of yeshiva students classified as deserting or absent without leave, attorney Yoav Lalum has issued an urgent demand to the military and legal leadership, alleging that every student arrested in proactive operations over the past year has been from Sephardic communities.
In a sharply worded letter sent to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Lalum—head of the Noar K’Halacha organization—called for an immediate halt to what he described as targeted enforcement against Sephardic bnei Torah.
The renewed arrests by the Military Police have already raised tensions across the chareidi sector. Lalum warned that the data itself points to a deeply troubling pattern. “A simple review of the list of detainees who were arrested in proactive arrests by the IDF enforcement authorities reveals that almost all of the detainees arrested in the past year were specifically from the Sephardic communities,” he wrote.
He said such an outcome is impossible to justify and signals a systemic problem. “There is no way to accept such a result,” he told the Chief of Staff, adding that the situation “raises more than a suspicion that, heaven forbid, improper and illegitimate considerations are guiding the discretion of enforcement officials in the army, as they exercise their authority under the law to enforce the rules on deserters or draft evaders.”
Lalum requested full disclosure of the guidelines governing enforcement decisions and called for a comprehensive internal investigation before he proceeds with a petition to the High Court. “I am making this appeal as an exhaustion of proceedings before filing a petition,” he wrote, “with the goal that you order a full inquiry into the events that occurred and how it is possible that only Sephardic yeshiva students were arrested in proactive arrests.”
He further warned that the impact extends far beyond the arrests themselves, striking at the core of the community’s trust in the IDF and the political establishment. “It goes without saying,” Lalum wrote, “that these actions severely damage the trust of the Sephardic chareidi public in the army and in any draft law, even one agreed upon by the chareidi leadership. Just as the chareidi establishment treats Sephardic children in the education system, there is a serious concern that those who will be forced to fill the quotas will be Sephardic avreichim and bnei Torah whose life is Torah, while Ashkenazi troublemakers will receive deferments.”
Lalum ended his letter by emphasizing that the military must demonstrate transparent and equal enforcement, especially as the possibility of legal action looms. “It need not be stated,” he wrote, “that it is the duty of the IDF—as the army of the nation—to clarify and prove that there is no concern whatsoever of ethnic discrimination in its conduct regarding Sephardic chareidim.”
The IDF has not yet issued a response.
{Matzav.com}
