Orthodox exemption may break Netanyahu's coalition

The most controversial Israeli comedy scene about the current war is just 88 seconds long. It aired in February on Eretz Nehederet, the Israeli equivalent of Saturday Night Live, and begins with two ashen-faced officers knocking on the door of a nondescript apartment, ready to deliver devastating news to the residents. The officers are greeted by an extremist Jewish man who is similarly shocked when he sees them.

“I was terrified by that hit,” he says. “Since the war started, I knew it would eventually come for me.” But before the anguished officers can continue, he interjects: “Listen, there's no situation where I'll enlist – forget it.”

It turns out the officers had the wrong address. This is not the home of a fallen soldier, but rather the home of one of the many thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not serve in the Israeli army, thanks to a special dispensation. As the officers were leaving to find the right family, the man called out to them, saying, “Tell them we prayed for him! We prayed for him!” We did everything we could.”

The gag hit a nerve. Channel 14, the pro-Netanyahu Israeli equivalent of Fox News, showed several clips condemning the mockery. Commentators in right-wing media described this as “incitement,” a term usually applied to pro-terrorism rhetoric in Israeli discourse. Why would a short sketch elicit such an overwhelming response? Because it targeted the most vulnerable pressure point in Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition – a point that has the potential to cause the collapse of the current government.

Since Israel's founding in 1948, it has fielded an army of citizens with mandatory Jewish conscription — with one very notable exception: ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, or Haredim, do not serve. This exemption dates back to the era of David Ben-Gurion, the country's first prime minister. As a secular Jewish socialist, Ben-Gurion saw Israel's ultra-religious people as remnants of the dying old world, and when the community's leaders asked for exemption from conscription, Ben-Gurion calculated that this was a small price to pay for their support. At the time, ultra-Orthodox Jews made up about 1% of Israel's population, and the exemption applied to only 400 young men in yeshivas.

Read: Unconventionality of the Ultra-Orthodox Community

Which was then. Today, the Haredi community numbers approximately 1.2 million people, or more than 13% of the total population of Israel. Because this community has the highest birth rate in the country, its ranks will swell. In other words, the fastest-growing group in Israeli society does not serve in its armed forces. Since October 7, the division has become starkly apparent. After Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more, the country began one of the largest mobilizations in its history. Children and spouses left their families for the front, leaving fear and uncertainty in their absence. Since then, nearly 250 soldiers have been killed, and thousands more have been injured. Many Israelis spend their evenings at home worrying about this ominous knock on the door.

Meanwhile, Haredi life continued largely as usual, untouched by the war and its casualties. Yeshiva students have been photographed enjoying ski holidays abroad while their peers of the same age are on the battlefield. Some religious individuals serve voluntarily in the military, and others serve as first responders, but their numbers are small enough to be a rounding error. In February, a record number of Haredi men of military age received exemptions: 66,000 men. Only 540 have been recruited since the war began. In other words, the number of Israeli Arabs serving in the Israel Defense Forces is greater than the number of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The Haredi divide has long angered Israel's secular citizens. Yair Lapid, the center-left opposition leader and former prime minister, rose to prominence in 2012 in a campaign that promised “equality of the burden.” Before him, right-wing politician Avigdor Lieberman built his secular Russian constituency on a similar pledge. But what has changed since October 7 is that this discontent no longer emanates just from the usual suspects, such as the left-wing Eretz Neheidert party, but from supporters of the current ruling coalition, including the more modern religious right.

In contrast to the ultra-Orthodox, Israel's religious Zionist community is fully integrated into the country's military and economy. Because she is sympathetic to Haredi piety, she is usually absent from discussions about conscription — but no longer. In early January, a religious Zionist teacher from Jerusalem published an “open letter to our Haredi sisters.” In this, she appealed to religious mothers to encourage their children to enlist in the Israeli army. “This reality is no longer tolerable,” she wrote. “And to those who think their son is not suitable for military service, we say: Many of our children are not fit to be soldiers. None of them are fit to die in war. None of us is fit to send a child to risk his life. We all do it because it is impossible to live here without an army…and we are all responsible for each other: others cannot risk and risk their children for me, and I and my children will not risk for them. The letter now contains nearly 1,000 signatures.

Public pressure on the issue from the non-Haredi religious community has risen to the point that Bezalel Smotrich, the ultra-nationalist politician and finance minister who has sought to attract Haredi votes, has joined the anti-exemption campaign, at least rhetorically. “The current situation is terrible and cannot continue,” he said last month. “Claim of Israeli society against [Haredi] Society is fair.” But this demand may be one that Netanyahu cannot meet.

Much has been written about Netanyahu's reliance on the Israeli far right to stay in power. But the backbone of his coalition for many years were actually the ultra-Orthodox political parties. They have stuck by the prime minister after he was indicted on corruption charges, and have refused to defect to the opposition even after Netanyahu failed to form a government after successive faltering elections. Today, the far right offers 14 of the 64 seats in Netanyahu’s coalition; The ultra-Orthodox parties provide 18. The Israeli leader has generously rewarded this loyalty by ensuring an increasing flow of public support for ultra-Orthodox voters and their religious institutions. Because Haredi men can only maintain their military exemption by remaining in seminary until age 26, they rarely enter the workforce until late in life and lack the secular education needed to succeed in it. As a result, nearly half of the ultra-Orthodox community lives in poverty and relies on government welfare — an unsustainable economic trajectory that is another constant source of Israeli anxiety.

The Israeli public — especially the Israeli right — had previously been willing to look the other way on enlisting the Haredim to advance other political priorities. But now, at a time of marked existential conflict, Haredi recruitment has become a major concern. Israel faces a war with Iran's proxies – Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north – and it needs more soldiers, not more people who cannot be recruited. To counter this, the country extended the reserve duty period for current conscripts, further underscoring the disparity between their experience and that of the ultra-Orthodox. A long-standing fault line in Israeli society has created an earthquake.

Recent polls show that Israeli Jews – including majorities on the political right and center right – now overwhelmingly oppose blanket exemptions for the Haredim. A February poll found that a staggering 73% opposed the exemptions, an 11-point increase from November. A poll released this week similarly showed that 73% of Israeli Jews, including the majority of people who voted for Netanyahu's government, oppose the NIS 1 billion in subsidies for ultra-Orthodox institutions included in the government's current budget proposal.

Read: The unexpected end to the democratic crisis in Israel

Unfortunately for Netanyahu, he is running out of time to solve this problem, and his usual delaying tactics may not be enough. This is because it is not only the Israeli public, but rather the Israeli Supreme Court that put this issue on the agenda. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews violated the principle of equality under the law, and ordered Parliament to legislate a fairer arrangement to replace the current system. Since then, successive Israeli governments have tried and failed to formulate such a solution, continually postponing the problem. Months before the war, the current government set March 31 as a deadline to pass its own legislation to resolve the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription. This was widely expected to be another exercise in evasion, leaving most ultra-Orthodox Jews exempt in order to hold the coalition together, and likely leading to another showdown with the Supreme Court. In other words, more of the same.

But more of the same is no longer enough after October 7. With the public's anger at what many consider the privilege of the Haredim, Netanyahu is facing a revolution within his ranks. Notably, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant publicly called for an end to the exemptions and said he would not support any legislation on the matter that was not also approved by Benny Gantz, a centrist opposition lawmaker and rival of Netanyahu who is involved in the country's war. treasury. But any draft law presented by the Haredim that satisfies Gantz and Gallant is unlikely to satisfy the Haredi parties, which see conscription as a threat to their isolated way of life. If new legislation is not passed, the Israeli army will be required to begin recruiting ultra-Orthodox Jews on April 1.

As that deadline approached, tensions exploded into the open. Last week, Yitzhak Yosef, Israel's Sephardic chief rabbi, declared that “if you force us to go into the army, we will all move abroad.” This ultimatum sparked widespread condemnation, even from within the hard-right government. “Recruitment into the army: a good deed!” Smotrich's party responded. The far-right faction, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, added, “Military service is a great privilege for a Jew who defends himself in his country and is a great work.” It is not clear whether these worldviews can be reconciled, and failure to reconcile them could bring down the government.

Opinion polls show that the vast majority of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign, either now or after the war. And that most Israelis want early elections; And that the current far-right coalition would be crushed if those elections were held tomorrow. US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is certainly aware of these polls, called on Israel yesterday to go to the polls to choose a new leadership. The problem for the Israeli people is that there is no external mechanism to force Netanyahu to hold new elections, and his coalition's terrible opinion polls give its members every incentive to accept their differences and keep the government afloat rather than confront voters. Compulsory Haredi conscription is perhaps the only issue that could break this cynical agreement.

It is never wise to bet against Netanyahu, Israel's ultimate survivor. He will follow all possible ways to solve this problem. But if he fails, his religious allies may be forced to leave the coalition, breaking it from within to force elections and freeze the status quo until a new government is sworn in. If this happens, another civil war in Israel may claim its first victim: Netanyahu's political career.

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