Netanyahu's leadership faces political threat
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing his most challenging political threat since the start of the Israel-Hamas war because of a disagreement among members of his coalition about whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should retain their long-standing exemption from military service.
An unwieldy right-wing alliance of secular and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, the coalition's members are divided about whether the state should continue to allow young ultra-Orthodox men to study at religious seminaries instead of serving in the military as most other Jewish Israelis do. If the government abolishes the exemption, it risks a walkout from the ultraOrthodox lawmakers; if it lets the exemption stand, the secular members could withdraw. Either way, the coalition could collapse.
The situation poses the gravest challenge to Netanyahu's grip on power since Hamas raided Israel on Oct. 7, prompting Israel to invade Hamas' stronghold in the Gaza Strip. Criticized by many Israelis for presiding over the October disaster, Netanyahu is trailing in the polls and faces growing calls to resign. But until now, there were few obvious ways in which his coalition might collapse.
The end of the coalition probably would lead to new elections, and polling suggests that Netanyahu would not win.
A new Israeli government led by centrists is unlikely to take a markedly different approach to the war in Gaza, but it may be more open to allowing the Palestinian leadership in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to play a bigger role in Gaza after the war. That arrangement could create a more conducive environment for Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, which had edged closer to sealing diplomatic ties with Israel before the war broke out.
The ultra-Orthodox have been exempt from military service since the founding of Israel in 1948, but as the numbers of the ultra-Orthodox have grown — and especially in the months since the war began — so have resentment and anger over these privileges.
The issue came to the fore Thursday night when the government announced that the coalition had not agreed on an extension to the exemption by Monday, when the current exemption elapses. That news prompted the Supreme Court to instruct the government, as soon as the deadline passes, to suspend special educational subsidies that support seminary students if those students have failed to answer their military call-ups.
The court's decision spurred outrage among ultra-Orthodox leaders who fear for the financial future of their education system, which depends largely on state subsidies, and are concerned that the funding freeze is the first step toward mandatory military
service for their community. For now, some ultraOrthodox leaders have said that their parties will remain in the coalition while they wait to see what happens.
The standoff reflects how a decadeslong battle over the character and future of the Jewish state has become graver since Oct. 7. Secular Israelis long have clashed with the ultra-Orthodox minority, known in Hebrew as Haredim, about how religious the state should be and how much autonomy the Haredim should have.
Now a growing number of soldiers, including those from religious backgrounds, are returning from the front lines in Gaza and questioning why they should be risking their lives for a minority that receives vast educational subsidies, contributes less to the economy than other parts of society and mostly does not serve in the military.
The dispute is rooted in decisions made in the years surrounding Israel's founding, when the country's secular leadership promised autonomy and privileges to the ultra-Orthodox minority
in exchange for their support for a largely secular national project. As well as exemption from the draft, the Haredim are allowed to run their own autonomous education system.
When their numbers of the Haredim were relatively small, their privileges mattered less to the Israeli mainstream. But as their population swelled to more than 1 million people, roughly 13% of Israel's population — up from 40,000, or 5%, in 1948 — even many observant Jews who serve in the military have expressed resentment.
The exemption has prompted numerous legal challenges, the most significant of which was upheld by a Supreme Court decision in 2017. Its implementation has been postponed repeatedly to allow successive governments to find a compromise, and the latest deferment will elapse Monday.
In practice, few expect military police officers to start searching Haredi neighborhoods to arrest seminary students who should be serving in the army. The army is not logistically prepared to absorb
large numbers of highly conservative men who, for religious reasons, will refuse to serve in units alongside women.
The Supreme Court also has given the government another month to reach a middle ground acceptable to its religious and its secular members. Officials and lawmakers say a compromise is under discussion, in which a few thousand seminary dropouts would be required to serve, but not those still studying.
“There is an understanding that something should be done, especially after Oct. 7,” said Danny Danon, a secular lawmaker in the governing coalition who supports ending the exemption. “We respect religion, and tradition, but at the same time, we realize that we have to change the current situation,” he added.
The threat of a financial shortfall for Haredi schools has injected a greater sense of urgency into the negotiations. The court order did not say how many students would be affected by the freeze, and Netanyahu's office declined to comment on whether the government would enforce the order.