As if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government wasn’t facing enough difficulties in recent weeks, a new crisis is emerging that could potentially bring it down. The latest controversy concerns a long-established fault line in Israeli politics: The question of who has to serve in the military, and who doesn’t.
On paper, Israel has a national draft with the military regarded as the “melting pot” of Israeli society. In practice, though, these ideas have been more myth than reality for many years. Less than half of the eligible population actually serves in the military and large segments of society – from Arab citizens to religious women – are legally exempt from service. An even smaller proportion of the population shows up for reserve duty on a regular basis.
Nothing has exemplified the rift over the issue of military service more than the exemptions given to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, who have largely avoided service for decades in favor of religious study in yeshivas. At the moment, a temporary but long-standing policy allows them to forgo military service if they study in a yeshiva until the age of 26.
The result is that the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox men not only avoid military service, but many of them also can’t join the workforce as they are required to remain in their yeshiva for years.
Now, the ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s government (United Torah Judaism and Shas) want to lower the exemption age to 21. This means that Haredi men will be exempt from military service if they commit to studying in a yeshiva between the ages of 18 and 21. After that, they will be allowed to go out and work, as their peers who served in the military are just concluding their service. By comparison, secular Jewish men in Israel must serve a minimum of two years and eight months, while secular Jewish women must serve two.
Bringing down the exemption age is an idea that could have economic benefits for Israel, since more ultra-Orthodox men will be able to join the workforce earlier. However, it will also constitute profound discrimination against the groups that do serve in the military.
The political backlash to such a move could be harsh, which is why the government is currently debating a package of economic benefits to soldiers in order to sweeten the pill.
“I don’t think it’s going to work, because a lot of young men and women and their parents will not agree to such discrimination,” said Asaf Malchi, a researcher in the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel program at the Israel Democracy Institute.
He also cautioned that such legislation, if it were to pass, could be struck down by the Israeli Supreme Court due to its discriminatory nature, which would give one part of the Jewish population an exemption while others must serve and sometimes risk their lives.
Shas and United Torah Judaism, however, are threatening to bring down the government if the legislation doesn’t pass. In fact, one of the main reasons the Haredi parties have supported Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul is because of their fear that the Supreme Court will intervene and strike down legislation shielding their voters from military service.
These parties have predicated their support for the state budget – which must be passed in the Knesset by the end of May or else the government will dissolve – on the passage of the new draft law. Some in the governing coalition believe the parties will reach a compromise on lowering the age to 22, though this move would still face stiff opposition from the public.
Over the past decade, the ultra-Orthodox parties have been staunch allies of Netanyahu. In return, they have largely enjoyed a continuing monopoly over several issues of domestic policy related to religion and state, as well as significant power to direct funding to their institutions, limit governmental control over their community’s affairs and allow many of their voters to avoid military service.
This has led to significant resentment among secular Israelis, who have repeatedly called for the Haredim to “share the burden” of military service. Recently, the mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul spilled over into the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, where hundreds of military reservists set up a makeshift “army recruitment center” at a central intersection.
If the government indeed falls over this issue, it will not be the first time ultra-Orthodox exemption from the military has created a major political crisis. In 2017, the Supreme Court struck down a law exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from serving during their yeshiva studies, on the basis that it perpetuated inequality between religious and secular Israelis. However, the court allowed the status quo to remain in force for several years, in order to give the government time to pass replacement legislation.
In 2019, a disagreement over attempts to create that legislation led then-Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to quit the coalition and trigger an early election. That event led Israel to an unprecedented political crisis that included four elections in three years and Netanyahu’s ouster from power for a period of 18 months. The Likud leader has now returned as prime minister, but the issue that fractured his previous coalition still threatens his current one.
The status quo, in which “more than half of ultra-Orthodox men are not formally working and at the same time [almost none] are serving in the army or national service, is the worst possible scenario,” said Malchi, noting that the Haredi leadership “doesn’t think in terms of a social contract or obligation to the state.”
Secular Israelis protesting against the Haredi exemption to serve in the military, in Bnei Brak last month.Credit: Itay Ron
While a senior Israeli military official said Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces would not oppose lowering the draft exemption age for Haredi yeshiva students to 23, the opposition has already rejected that proposal. National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz and his fellow lawmaker Gadi Eisenkot – both former IDF chiefs of staff – called the push to lower the exemption age “dangerous.”
“Why should an entire community continue to serve in the military,” said Eisenkot, “while another community gets released from service even more easily? The protests will only get stronger and, instead of bridging the rifts in society, they will only grow.”
But while many in the opposition have come out strongly against the new legislation, retired IDF general Elazar Stern, now a lawmaker for Yesh Atid, said he could support it if passed as a “temporary measure” that would sunset after a decade. “But you can’t do that and at the same time allow people who want to stay in yeshiva for 10 years to stay – and we pay them,” he said. He called for the proposed legislation to be paired with an end to government stipends for lifelong yeshiva students.