( Middle East Monitor ) – It may not have occurred to David Ben-Gurion 77 years ago, when he approved a limited exemption from military service for a few hundred yeshiva students, that he was sowing the seeds of a crisis that would threaten Israel’s existence. The goal at the time was purely political, as he wanted to integrate the Haredim into the Zionist project. However, the “temporary exemptions” snowballed from individual exemptions to collective exemptions, and then to a system of sacred privileges that the religious parties refuse any change to and which they consider an essential condition for any political alliance.
For years, the spectre of controversy over Haredi military service loomed over Israeli politics. However, the 7 October 2023, attack accelerated the crisis due to the expansion of the aggression on Gaza. Following the intensified confrontations on multiple fronts, the occupation army, which has long boasted its technical capabilities, realised it desperately needed “boots on the ground.” This forced the issue of the Haredi exemption back on to the table, viewing it as blatant discrimination in the name of religion, a practice now opposed by more than 70 per cent of Israelis. Despite attempts at political bypassing, the Supreme Court ruled that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government must respect the principle of equality in performing “national duties” and repeatedly overturned any collective exemption that lacked an explicit legal basis. However, the government resorted to a policy of procrastination and manoeuvres in an attempt to postpone the expected political explosion.
The dilemma is deeper than just a conscription issue, as it touches on the core of the Haredi social structure, based on the idea of “his Torah is his profession” which categorically rejects involvement in state institutions, beginning with the army. Hence, the ultra-Orthodox parties, particularly Shas and United Torah Judaism, insist on passing a comprehensive law guaranteeing a permanent exemption for Torah students, or at least enacting an “emergency law” that maintains the status quo. Meanwhile, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) rejects any arrangement that does not include immediate sanctions on those who evade drafting. With internal negotiations faltering and public and parliamentary pressure mounting, the opposition Yesh Atid party decided to formally submit, on Wednesday, 11 June, a bill to dissolve the Knesset. The ultra-Orthodox announced their support for the bill if they do not receive solid guarantees regarding the conscription law and sent a unified partisan message to Netanyahu: There will be no compromise on the exemption for Torah students, even at the cost of bringing down the government. This means that the crisis is no longer just about a legal clause or a political settlement, but has entered a phase of an existential conflict over the identity of the state: Is it Jewish in the rabbinic sense, or civil in the liberal sense? Can distinctions continue between a young man serving in elite units and another who is exempted because he wears a black skullcap (kippah) and memorised the Talmud?
Netanyahu faces limited and risky scenarios: passing a comprehensive exemption law that would satisfy the Haredim, but would spark a crisis with the army and the Supreme Court, leading to popular unrest; forcibly enforcing conscription that would lead to an open confrontation with the Haredi community and possibly the disintegration of the coalition; or postponing or introducing a watered-down bill, a tactic that no longer works, as the divisions within the coalition itself have become irreconcilable. With the loss of their old manoeuvring tools, the Haredim, who were the kingmaker in the government, have become a strategic burden that is difficult to contain during this time of war and popular division. The evidence suggests that it is only a matter of time before a collapse, as the lack of a fair settlement regarding equality in military service means that the crisis will escalate until it explodes. The Haredi parties are now ready to set fire to the ship if their key demand is not met.
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If they vote to dissolve the Knesset, a scenario we (Israel’s enemies) would like to see, the doors will officially be open for early elections that could oust Netanyahu and his Haredi allies, and perhaps the future of the traditional Israeli right. The public mood has changed, and voters do not look favourably on the alliances that have preserved religious privileges at a time when soldiers are being killed on multiple fronts. With Naftali Bennett’s possible return, it seems that a “post-Netanyahu right” is slowly but surely taking shape. The current crisis reflects a deeper identity crisis and the end of alliances that were once considered sacred.
Translated from Al Araby Al Jadid,10 June 2025
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