Maayan Lubell – Reuters June 25, 2024
Ultra Orthodox Jews protest IDF draft plans
- Court ruling is political headache for PM Netanyahu
- Ultra-Orthodox conscription waiver annoyed many Israelis
- Overstretched military says it needs more conscripts
JERUSALEM, June 25 (Reuters) – Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the state must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students into the military, a decree which creates new political strains for embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s Likud party said the Supreme Court’s ruling was “perplexing,” given ongoing efforts in parliament to agree on a new conscription law that would address the problem
The prime minister’s coalition government relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties that regard conscription exemptions as key to keeping their constituents in religious seminaries and out of a melting-pot army that might test their customs.
Leaders of those parties said they were disappointed with the ruling but issued no immediate threat to the government.
However, the prospect of the military, backed by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, starting to draft seminary students could widen cracks in Netanyahu’s increasingly brittle coalition
The ultra-Orthodox conscription waiver has become increasingly charged in Israel as its armed forces are overstretched by a multi-front war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“At the height of a difficult war, the burden of inequality is more than ever acute,” the court’s unanimous ruling said.
Israelis are bound by law to serve in the military from the age of 18 for 24-32 months. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab minority are mostly exempt, though some do serve, and ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students have also been largely exempt for decades.
The law governing the exemption for seminary students expired last year, but the government continued to allow them not to serve. The Supreme Court ruled that in the absence of a new legal basis for the exemption, the state must draft them.
Adding further pressure on the ultra-Orthodox coalition parties, the ruling also barred seminaries from receiving state subsidies if scholars avoid service without deferrals or exemptions.
Education Minister Yoav Kisch voiced hope that agreement could be reached on a compromise.
“Not in a civil war, not in a fight that will tear apart Israeli society in the middle of a tough war. It’s possible to do it together,” Kisch said.
Political scientist Gideon Rahat, of the bi-partisan Israel Democracy Institute, said the ruling had piled fresh pressure on Netanyahu. “He will try to buy time and make every effort to remove this issue from the public agenda,” said Rahat.
EXISTENTIAL
While the military has said it is in dire need of more conscripts, ultra-Orthodox leaders see the exemptions as existential for preserving their traditions.
“There’s no judge there who understands the value of Torah study and its contribution to the people of Israel throughout the generations,” said ultra-Orthodox lawmaker Moshe Gafni, who heads the powerful parliamentary Finance Committee, referring to study of Judaism’s holy books.
Opposition parties welcomed the ruling.
“There’s nothing Jewish about dodging military service,” said opposition lawmaker and former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman.
For more than six years, the state had been asking the Supreme Court for more time to pass a new conscription law to resolve the issue.
The new draft bill being hammered out in parliament could resolve the crisis if wide agreement is reached. Otherwise, it could have the potential to bring Netanyahu’s government down.
Gallant, who has taken up independent positions against Netanyahu on more than one occasion, wants a more equal sharing of the burden, a sentiment shared by several other lawmakers in Netanyahu’s Likud party and among most of the opposition.
The military waiver for the ultra-Orthodox has sparked protests in recent months by Israelis angry that they are shouldering the risk of fighting the war in Gaza. In city streets, ultra-Orthodox demonstrators have blocked roads under the banner “death before conscription”.
The waivers also have wider economic impact. The ultra-Orthodox make up 13% of Israel’s 10 million population, a figure expected to reach 19% by 2035 due to their high birth rates.
The conscription waiver keeps some of the community in seminaries and out of the workforce, hindering economic growth and placing a welfare burden on middle-class taxpayers.
Not read. Two orthodox Joo factions keep Bibi in power, on the basis they’ll be none conscripted. lol.
Fighting amongst themselves as usual. Most amusing.
OYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!
LOL! Ya gotta love this! The ortho freaks will probably hinder more than help!
They are the pillars of Insane, Satanic, Supremacist Judaism, which thinks it should rule the world & kill the Goyim. They should be great killers, but then again, they’re big cowards, so will probably be ineffective. Those curly sideburns will no doubt attract sniper fire!
Israel & the USA are finished. The world will rejoice.
Since the war is basically a hoax, it doesn’t mean anything. Its simply an Israeli agitprop skit staged by the Jews to depict these ultra-Orthodox mongrel nutjobs as the ‘good guys opposing the war’. Its a psyop. Yids trying to portray these Talmudic ghouls as ‘anti-zionist’ or anti-Israel, yet in reality they’re the sickest & craziest of them all.
Scott Ritter said the orthodox Jews are some of Israel’s most ardent warmongers, so let them fight the wars they’re forever demanding. Or maybe they’ll develop some ideas about peace all of a sudden?
All the more reason to leave Israel.
Insane beliefs meet the reality of war.
The Torah is this book in which God ordains the State and now the State wants you as tank fodder.
So how’s that dream of Israel working out Jew?
Hell no Shlomo won’t go !
Mass emigration from israel coming s of now, “oy vey why do they persecute me so”
Marco Sieira nails it in his comment above, “They are the pillars of Insane, Satanic, Supremacist Judaism, which thinks it should rule the world & kill the Goyim. They should be great killers, but then again, they’re big cowards…”
OyVey! I would probably be laughing too hard to shoot straight if I was across the battlefield from those dysgenic shit-stains in their reeking black suits, absurd hats, and contrived curls. I;d say f*ck he rifle and go straight to hand-to-hand combat with those deranged pig-fuckers; beat the piss out of them then alternate between slitting their throats from curl to curl or slicing them open from tits to taint, ripping out their intestines, and strangling them with their own entrails while looking them right in the eye.
You can almost hear the ‘great wailing and gnashing of teeth’ from these head-bobbing cowards, the biggest stirrers of war-mongering rhetoric who won’t, er, actually ever go to war. It’s not often you’ll see an outburst of common sense from Bibi’s gangsters, so make the most of it when the time comes. Hezbollah sniper.