The News
Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that ultra-Orthodox Jewish students must immediately be conscripted into the military, a decision that could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s already-fragile governing coalition, which relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties who oppose enlistment.
The court said that in the absence of a law distinguishing between Jewish seminary students and other draftees, Israel’s compulsory service laws must also apply to the ultra-Orthodox.
Military service is mandatory for most Israelis once they turn 18, but ultra-Orthodox Jews have been largely exempt.
SIGNALS
Dilemmas for ultra-Orthodox Jews
The ultra-Orthodox now face a dilemma, the vice president of The Jewish People Policy Institute told The Washington Post: If their political representatives force the collapse of Netanyahu’s coalition in protest, new elections risk bringing into power parties that are even less accommodating. 70% of Israeli Jews want to end blanket exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, according to the Israel Democracy Institute — making a Knesset majority all but assured for parties that promise no return to the old system, while consigning ultra-Orthodox parties to a “long and unaccustomed period in opposition,” a columnist argued in Haaretz.
Broadening military service is now seen as a ‘necessity’
Ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service has long been a source of controversy in Israel, centering on the question of equal burden-sharing, but months into the country’s war in Gaza, this is “no longer just a value but a necessity,” the vice president of The Jewish People Policy Institute argued in The Jerusalem Post in February — a sentiment echoed in the Supreme Court’s own ruling, which said that “at the height of a difficult war, the burden of inequality is even more acute.” But practical concerns about Israel’s limited manpower may be overblown, a Middle East expert argued in Rane, for reasons including that emerging military technologies are increasingly automated.