re: #152 lawhawk

The Tal Committee tried to thread the needle with requiring mandatory service of some form - either public service or military service, but it ran into opposition from the Orthodox parties who don’t want any change in exemption status.

Professionalizing the IDF would make sense if Israel had a far larger population than it does. Their need for servicemembers has meant everyone needs to participate in some fashion; that’s why they have to call up reserves every time there’s a flareup with Hamas or Hizbullah.

Sadly, there were quite a few committees that barely saw the light of day for all intents and purposes that wouldn’t have even required anything of the Orthodox communities, so they wouldn’t have been an obstacle.

As to the issue of numbers/population (warning: long post ahead):
I’ve seen the population size argument with regard to reserve units before and it’s usually been deemed less of a factor than what you might expect. A lot of this is tied to funding as well as many things within the IDF structure that go back decades (and could take hours to get into properly). Furthermore, at the end of the day, this is an issue that deals primarily with those who see operational deployment - the combat soldiers, regular and reservists alike…

… who represent just 14-16% of the ENTIRETY of the IDF.

One of the things brought up by the Malka Committee that DID see the light of day and saw some attempt at a solution was the effort to address the rampant bloating within the IDF structure. There were far, far, FAR too many in IDF service at the time whose actual roles were so ridiculously trivial or outright useless that they basically spent most of their draft service just passing the time waiting for it to be over, and doing nothing short of taking up a “teken” (an “IDF standard”, meaning a role that has to be be assigned and often exists solely due to bureaucratic history). While the Committee’s efforts addressed this to a degree, there remains a LOT of unnecessary bloating and useless positions employed by tens of thousands to this day, and a restructuring of the military as was proposed at the time would also have freed up considerable funds and infrastructure to reinforce the combat units substantially.

Lastly, and I simply have to point this out - many of those reserve units that get called to action? Loads of them prove to be in terrible professional shape, putting their very usefulness into question.
Reservists are generally “required” to perform “reserve service” for a few days every few months on average until they’re discharged, usually near the age of 40 (it’s somewhat flexible depending on the units). Thing is, for a LOT of them, this “service” basically amounts to just showing up and sitting around while drinking coffee and eating for those few days. I’ve witnessed it myself, and heard stories aplenty from friends in the country who are active reservists.
Oh, and sometimes, the reserve service has little to nothing to do with what you might have actually done in regular draft service. Oh, and the “requirement” can and is played with, by many. Oh, and there’s almost never any consequences for bad conduct.

There’s no escaping it - even those I know who do it properly have loads of stories about how many of their fellow reservists just won’t do sh*t. And really, why should a bunch of 30+ year olds put up with taking orders barked out of the mouth of some 19-20 year old shmuck with little actual authority and delusions of superiority because he’s a lieutenant fresh out of officer training while they’re “just staff sergeants” or “civvies in uniform” stuck in the middle of nowhere?
Even if units do maintain their training and fully commit to the reserve service, they generally perform poorly when pressed into active service compared to the regular IDF units. And the absence of a good infrastructure to support them in the field was also what resulted in failures when dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah, and was on full display in the Second Lebanon War.

At the end of the day, a small but well trained, fully-supported regular force serving because it’s their chosen career will surely do better than a slightly bigger but nowhere-as-professional and poorly-supported unit of average folks who are forced to do it and may not give a damn…