Beyond the draft debate, what is the real solution to Israel's security crisis? – opinion

Israel faces a severe manpower shortage almost three years after October 7, with current strategies to increase haredi enlistment through legal and economic pressure proving ineffective. The article argues that the focus should shift from coercion to understanding what genuinely encourages participation, especially given Israel's changed security environment, which requires a new architecture for prolonged, multifront conflicts.

• A survey by the Institute for Strategy and Haredi Policy found that approximately 70% of married haredi men in the workforce are willing to serve in adapted reserve frameworks.
• Following October 7, over 6,000 working haredi men voluntarily sought to join the IDF, though few were fully integrated.
• Proposals exist to integrate tens of thousands of haredi men and women into national resilience infrastructure, including emergency response and defense industries, and adapted frameworks like Kodcode and Maalot Tzur demonstrate successful integration models.

The author, Eli Paley, suggests that Israel needs practical results and a security strategy broad enough to mobilize all parts of society, moving beyond the debate on the haredi draft to focus on building participation at scale.