Israeli Supreme Court rules that ultra-Orthodox men must be drafted: NPR

In a historic ruling that threatens to reach the foundations of Israel’s government, the country’s highest court has ordered the army to begin conscripting ultra-Orthodox men it has long exempted from service. Has been.

Tuesday’s decision was unanimous, and comes amid intense public opposition to the policy following a Hamas-led attack on Israel last year and months of conflict in Gaza that has strained the military’s resources.

For years, Israel’s highest court has held that religious exemptions violated rules on equal policy. In its unsealed decision, the court said the situation “is perpetuating false selective enforcement, which represents a gross violation of the rule of thumb of regulation.”

The court also barred subsidies for religious seminaries or yeshivas whose young students refuse to be admitted, a measure first imposed in March.

Before Tuesday’s decision, the Israeli government had extended the exemption several times, but had not been able to pass a law that would make it permanent, or allow a more restrictive draft of ultra-Orthodox men. In recent court arguments, government lawyers said forcing them to enlist would “tear apart Israeli society,” the AP reports.

With ultra-Orthodox recruitment set to begin now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now at risk of losing support within an already fragile coalition to keep him in power. The two politically strong ultra-Orthodox developments are critical of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and strongly disarm its constituents. If they leave the coalition, it would bring down Netanyahu’s government and lead to unsettled elections.

Discount hidden as unstable

The ultra-Orthodox military exemption goes back to the wake of Israel’s 1948 genocide, when the remains of religious scholars were considered vital to the Jewish state. Initially, it applied only to about 400 people from Orthodox, or Haredi, families.

However in Israel, where military service is otherwise mandatory, Haredi families have an average of six or seven children, a starting rate that makes them the fastest growing segment of the country’s society. According to Yonahan Plessner, president of the Israel Sovereignty Institute, they now put together about a quarter of the men for nomination week.

“There are huge implications for Israeli democracy on many dimensions,” he says.

For one thing, you won’t be able to stockpile any tasks to take back from the troop carrier. This is not hidden in the form of pressure on the financial system and increasing monetary burden on the public. Furthermore, Haredi political energy has grown in favor of their society, and has been too powerful for Netanyahu’s coalition.

“Throughout (Netanyahu’s) political career, there was a kind of overarching directive: maintain the alliance with the ultra-Orthodox at all costs, because that alliance maintains his hold on power,” Plessner says.

For ultra-Orthodox leaders the fight is existential. The Covenant Haredi way is one that trembles even before God. They shun engagement with the modern world, and worry that exposing young men to it during the military will ruin their week.

Protests intensified due to Hamas attack and Israel’s response

Since the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, the country has been fighting on three fronts: a punitive military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 37,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry; It intensified fighting in the Western Reserve and launched mutual attacks on its northern border with the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah. To support all this, the Israeli military has called up thousands of reserve soldiers, with others being mobilized quickly and deployed for long periods.

Ron Scherf, co-founder of Brothers & Sisters in Palms, says, “People who are serving now have to work double or triple the amount. It’s crazy. It just won’t happen.” Since the start of the war in Gaza, crowds of Gazans have held regular protests demanding an end to the largely ultra-Orthodox exemptions. Polls have shown overwhelming support for crowd accommodation, with over 70% of Jewish respondents in Israel declaring that changes to the exemption were needed.

“A minister in the government who is willing to have my son killed, and his son doing nothing,” says Scherff. “Who can understand this?”

Scherff’s group has made three demands: Everyone must enroll; Everyone must follow the exemption; And every rule must be enforced.

One problem: the stigma ultra-Orthodox squads face

Two thousand ultra-Orthodox people voluntarily joined the army carrier after the Hamas attack. They included Mordechai Porat, a 36-year-old social assistant in Bnei Brak in the middle of ultra-Orthodox week.

“I felt like a caged lion. I had to do something,” he says.

Porat spent several months offering treatment at a nearby army base. However, he never wears his green military uniform in the city and keeps his military dog ​​tag under his blouse to help keep it secret. Despite this low profile, he says he paid a price.

“My (kindergarten age) son still hasn’t been accepted to community school,” Porat noted in a March interview.

For the alternative ultra-Orthodox, the social costs of joining the Israeli military may be even higher.

“Going into the military will impair their ability to marry,” says Nechumi Yaffe of Tel Aviv College, who is ultra-Orthodox herself. “This will spoil their relationships in the family.”

He believes it would be perfect for the public to “normalize” as additional people are drafted. However she thinks Israelis do not realize how difficult this process is even for young men who are socially independent, with little to no education on human rights.

“I think Israeli society should ask itself, do you really want to see them in the army?” She says. “You know, (the Israelis) want to see blood. They want to see them in uniform, shooting. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Yaffe believes it will provide additional wisdom to divide them, with some starting out as truck drivers or chefs before they adapt to a mundane world.

Porat, who joined voluntarily, thinks that most Haredim would choose prison attendance over conscription. However, then following the Hamas attacks, polls demonstrated greater public support for the squads, and Porat believes there would be greater support for the doctrine over presence. However, he cautions that a gradual approach is best.

“If people are forced to do it, they will step back,” he says.