Published On 4/26/2026
Israeli writer Sami Peretz published in “The Marker” (a supplement affiliated with Haaretz newspaper) an article in which he discussed an Israeli proposal to create a “foreign legion” to fill the shortage of soldiers, in light of the Haredim’s refusal to conscript, deplete reserve forces, and extend the service of regular soldiers.
However, the importance of the article lies not only in the strangeness of the proposal, but also in the fact that it reveals a deeper crisis affecting the concept of the “people’s army” in Israel.
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Peretz points out that the authors of the proposal are Professor Ephraim Inbar, head of the Jerusalem Institute, who is known for his affiliation to the Israeli right, and Reserve Brigadier General Dr. Sasson Haddad, the former financial advisor to the Chief of Staff, who dealt in his thesis with the issue of the regular army.
Therefore, the proposal does not appear to be a marginal opinion, but rather issued by two figures who combine a security, economic, and political background. Inbar’s right-wing affiliation gives the idea additional significance, because it seems closer to circumventing the Haredi recruitment crisis rather than confronting it politically.
The writer puts the crisis in its context by saying that “the Haredim do not want to conscript,” and that reserve soldiers are “exhausted to the utmost extent,” while extending the service of the regulars is not enough to meet the army’s needs.
He then presents the essence of the proposal as “recruiting individuals from all over the world, giving them salaries, assigning them military missions, and sending them to fight, guard, and take risks instead of draft evaders.”
The author moves the discussion from importing labor to importing defense, which puts Israel before a sensitive question: Is it possible to privatize security as the labor sectors were privatized?
Peretz wonders: “If we abandoned the struggle for Hebrew labor a long time ago, why do we insist on a Hebrew army?” He adds, “The essence of Israel and the entire idea of the State of Israel is based on the idea of a national homeland for the Jewish people with its own military force.”
Although Inbar and Haddad justify the proposal by saying that there is no reason to reject “the help of foreign volunteers to achieve the Zionist idea,” Peretz believes that this logic hides the root of the crisis, which is the political inability to impose conscription on the Haredim.
He also questions the economic claim that a foreign legion would be more economical than a reserve, because bringing in foreigners requires housing, services, tickets, and compensation.
The most dangerous thing, in the writer’s opinion, is that the presence of foreign soldiers may relieve internal pressure on the government, because their losses will not arouse the same sensitivity as Israeli losses. He conveys that their use “will provoke less internal political pressure,” before warning that any action they take will remain Israel’s full responsibility, recalling the experience of Sabra and Shatila in 1982.
The article concludes that the Foreign Legion is not a solution to the recruitment crisis, but rather a sign of a deep internal rift. Israel, which is depleting its reserves and is afraid to confront the Haredim, appears to be looking for soldiers outside society instead of addressing the imbalance of justice within it.
