The Israeli Supreme Court unanimously determined this Tuesday the end of the military exemption for the ultra-Orthodoxa measure that polarizes Israeli society and complicates Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The two ultra-Orthodox parties in the country’s ruling coalition strongly oppose conscription of students and threaten to abandon it if the measure comes into force. The highest court ruled on this sensitive issue when the Israeli Army has been at war with Hamas in Gaza for more than eight months and fears that a new front will open on the border with Lebanon.
63 thousand ultra-Orthodox young people, in the crosshairs
“In the midst of a grueling war, the burden of inequality is harsher than ever and demands a solution”stated the president of the Court, Uzi Vogelmanwhen announcing the ruling, following an appeal filed in February by the Movement for a Quality Government, a progressive civil group, and associations of reservists and ex-military members.
The highest Israeli court decided that “there is no legal basis to exclude ultra-Orthodox men from the draft” and that if they do not serve in the Army they should not receive educational subsidies either and publicly funded social assistance, as is currently the case.
The military exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews who study full-time in yeshivas (Talmudic schools) is not a law but an executive provision that has been periodically extended since the birth of the State of Israel, although there are several court rulings indicating that it violates the principle equality of Israeli basic law.
Israel’s Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, ordered this Tuesday the country’s military leadership to “immediately” recruit three thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews.. In a letter to the Army’s legal advisor, reported by the Israeli press, Baharav-Miara’s office explained that the authorities must act immediately to implement the court’s decision.
The letter, also addressed to the Ministries of Finance and Education, recalls that the Court’s decision prevents the transfer of funds to Talmudic schools whose students do not perform compulsory military service. It is estimated that there are some 63,000 ultra-Orthodox young men of military age who would be forced to serve in the Army after the new court order, although the Israeli armed forces have already warned that by 2024 they would only be able to recruit three thousand.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews have special requirements in areas such as diet or living with women, and the Army would have to accommodate new recruits in special battalions. Neither Netanyahu nor the government made a formal statement. But his party, the Likud, did, suggesting political interests behind the Supreme Court ruling, which “for 76 years refrained from forcing the recruitment of yeshiva students.”
Divisions in the government coalition
The two ultra-Orthodox partiesShas and United Torah Judaism (JUT), They oppose the recruitment of young Torah scholars and they threaten to abandon the current government coalition if the measure comes into force, endangering their survival since they provide 18 seats. In a defiant tone, Shas leader and close ally of the prime minister, Aryeh Deri, said that “there is no power in the world that prevents the people of Israel from studying the Torah, and anyone who tried in the past failed miserably.”
JUT leader and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf called the decision “expected and unfortunate” and recalled that the State of Israel was born as “a home for the Jewish people, with the Torah as the cornerstone.” “There has never been a Supreme Court ruling in favor of yeshiva students and in the interest of the ultra-Orthodox. There is not a single judge who understands the value of Torah study and its contribution to the people of Israel,” said the co- JUT leader, rabbi and deputy Moshe Gafni.
At the beginning of April, a temporary exemption rule expired and since then numerous civil society groups and politicians, also within the government, demanded an end to the privileges of the ultra-orthodox, about 13 percent of Israeli society. The Court began hearings in June following a request from several civil groups. The Executive was represented by a private lawyer, since the Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, opposes the military exemption.
After the massive mobilization of some 300,000 reservists for the war in Gaza, which has lasted almost nine months and in which more than 300 soldiers died, Many Israelis demand from Netanyahu that all young people in Israel fulfill their military duty. This Tuesday, the prime minister visited the reservists stationed in the north of the country, where the Army maintains a constant exchange of fire with the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
The Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, approved in the last few hours a bill that increases the retirement age of reservists with the aim of guaranteeing that the Army has enough personnel in Gaza and on the border with Lebanon. The proposal, backed by the Ministry of Defense, calls for extending a temporary measure that increases the recruitment age of soldiers in the reserve from 40 to 41 years for soldiers and from 45 to 46 years for officers for several additional months.
