The Israeli Supreme Court weakened the ruling coalition, by issuing an expected and inevitable decision on Tuesday June 25: it requires the army to recruit ultra-Orthodox religious students, judging the de facto exemption from military service which they benefit from to be illegal. Unanimously, it subjects young haredim (those who “tremble” before God) to the principle of equality before the law. It also demands that the State deprive their yeshivas of part of its subsidies, these rigorous religious schools cut off from the world, which continue to cloister their students.
This decision puts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in difficulty, who fails to satisfy his ultra-Orthodox allies by passing a law that would perpetuate their exemption. But it arouses a form of relief in Israel, as the country sinks into the ninth month of its war in Gaza, and as the signs of a major operation on the Lebanese front become more insistent. The army estimates it is short 8,000 men to support the coming year of war. It is preparing to extend the reserve period and push back the exemption age.
Some reservists have been mobilized almost without interruption since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Already, the country is looking ahead to a decade of military operations of varying high intensity, and total exemption from service granted to the ultra-Orthodox. appears to be an unbearable archaism to a majority of Israelis.
On Tuesday, the country’s attorney general, Gali Baharav Miara, ordered the army to immediately recruit 3,000 religious students from the nearly 80,000 of military age. This is a first step, given that fewer than a thousand are currently serving in the army. She also issued a warning to the finance and education ministries, which are run by allies of the ultra-Orthodox, asking them not to encourage dissident schools and to effectively cut some of their funding.
Preparation of a law maintaining the exemption
However, the army does not appear in a hurry to open a front in the heart of Israel so quickly, sending its recruiters to Bnei Brak, the “capital” of the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in the country, who rule over some 13% of the population. Israeli population. She would face harsh movements of disobedience there. These rabbis have allowed Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud to remain at the head of government for a total of twenty-two years over the last thirty years: the prime minister knows what he owes them.
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