Israel’s government approved on Monday transferring a range of Interior Ministry powers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but stopped short of granting him the authority needed to advance a controversial sanction against draft evaders. The proposed measure would strip army draft dodgers, including yeshiva students who avoid enlistment, of municipal property tax discounts, or arnona exemptions.
The move came after the legal advisory system and the High Court of Justice said the government must act on the issue. Officials had been asked to include the arnona change in the powers transferred to Netanyahu, but the cabinet did not do so. The government instead approved the broader transfer of Interior Ministry authorities to enable decisions that cannot be carried out without that administrative step, including matters involving infiltrators, foreign workers, and planning issues.
The transfer is being used intermittently in recent months because Shas resigned from the government and there is no permanent interior minister. What was unusual this time was the refusal to include the draft-evasion sanction despite the legal demand. Last week, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon wrote to Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs that the government was violating a High Court order by failing to transfer the necessary authority for the arnona cut.
Limon said the 35 days set by the court had expired more than two weeks earlier and that the matter had still not been brought to the ministerial level. He wrote that the benefit removal had not been considered by the interior minister or an acting minister, “in violation of the court decision,” adding that this amounts to “a violation of a judicial order.”
