IDF unlikely to shorten army service due to drop in eligible conscripts

The Israel Defense Forces is unlikely to reduce the length of compulsory military service in the next few years, Maj. Gen. Avi Zamir, head of the IDF's Personnel Directorate, said in a briefing for reporters Sunday.

Though the IDF had prepared a plan for gradually reducing the length of compulsory service, the "complex security reality," the decline in the number of 18-year-olds eligible for service and the drop in the percentage of eligible 18-year-olds who actually enlist all make it impossible to implement this plan, Zamir said.

Last year, despite the army's efforts to increase enlistment rates, 25.8 percent of 18-year-old men and 44 percent of women did not enlist, and the army expects these rates to rise in the coming years. The main factor fueling this growth has been the increase in men who obtain draft deferments to study in yeshiva and women who declare that their religious principles bar them from serving. The former figure has more than doubled, from 4.9 percent of all 18-year-old boys in 1991 to 10.9 percent in 2008, while the latter has soared from 21.3 percent of all 18-year-old girls in 1991 to 34.6 percent in 2008.

Other factors, he noted, are the new law forbidding reservists to be called up for operational duty more than once every three years, which naturally increases the burden on regular troops, and the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, which require troops to devote more time to training.

Shortening compulsory service by as little as four months, he warned, would reduce the army's forces by about 5,000 combatants and 10,000 noncombat soldiers.

Zamir said the army estimates that about 8 percent of all 18-year-old girls falsely declare themselves religiously observant to evade army service. He noted that even at secular girls' high schools, 11 percent of all graduates sign such declarations.

To put a stop to this phenomenon, the army has begun hiring private investigators to check out girls who sign the declaration. Last year, Zamir said, 527 girls retracted their declarations after being confronted with photographic evidence of them violating the Sabbath, kissing men or otherwise demonstrating that they are not religiously observant.

In an effort to increase draft rates among religious men, the army has started a new program to recruit drop-outs from ultra-Orthodox high schools.