Violence escalates in Israel amid ultra-Orthodox military draft protests

Violence escalates in Israel amid ultra-Orthodox military draft protests The struggle over military service is stoking protests, threatening Israel’s coalition and reshaping political debate. The most fundamental rift in Israeli politics is arguably not the wars it is fighting on multiple fronts, nor the international isolation stemming from its genocidal war in Gaza. Instead, the conscription of young ultra-Orthodox men into the military continues to divide the country’s major political parties and bring demonstrators to the streets. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men brought city centres across central Israel to a halt on Thursday night as they protested against the arrest of their fellow adherents for refusing conscription into the army. Recommended Stories list of 4 items- list 1 of 4Ultra-Orthodox conscription dispute pushes Israeli government to brink - list 2 of 4Israeli lawmakers advance bill to dissolve parliament - list 3 of 4Ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators storm Israeli police station - list 4 of 4Ultra-Orthodox protesters clash with Israeli police over army draft Their refusal to serve in the military is not, however, out of a moral objection to Israel’s various wars, but instead because they view serving in the army as diluting their faith and drawing them away from studying it. Protests by angry young ultra-Orthodox men have become regular occurrences across Israel. Violence is routine. Dozens of police officers and protesters have been injured, and scores more arrested for their involvement in the unrest, with the blockage of streets and closure of parts of city centres becoming usual. The threat of losing parliamentary support over the issue from the two main ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) has pushed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to bring forward a bill to dissolve parliament, as well as align itself with what stands to be an unpopular bill going through parliament that, if successful, promises to enshrine the exemption of ultra-Orthodox religious students from the draft. Praising the advancement of the bill, parliamentarian Yisrael Eichler of the UTJ described it as “a declaration of holy war against those who blaspheme God, persecute the Torah and oppose those who study it”, as fellow UTJ member of parliament Meir Porush referred to the bill’s opponents as “anti-Semites” and “enemies of the Torah and its students”. Both said that Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties were compelled to bring forward the bill due to the “systematic persecution of Torah scholars” by “dictatorial jurists”, in a reference to members of Israel’s Supreme Court, whose longstanding opposition to their exemption has seen the homes of individual judges targeted for violence by protesters. “I think ultra-Orthodox recruitment could be one of the main issues in the election campaign,” Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said. “It’s easy for politicians to target the draft exemption specifically, as society as a whole has grown more militaristic through the [Gaza] genocide,” he continued. “The ultra-Orthodox generally have very large families, meaning that many people fear, with some foundation, that in decades to come they may eventually constitute a much larger part of the population, at which point Israel will not be able to consider itself a developed first-world society,” he said, referencing how the numbers of ultra-Orthodox students granted exemption from military service has increased from 400 in 1948 to the more than 54,000 students eligible for recruitment today. Separate lives Since the 2010s, Israel’s Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down laws and extensions preserving blanket draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox community, ruling they violate equality before the law. In June 2024, it went further still, declaring the system unlawful and ordering the conscription of eligible ultra-Orthodox men, intensifying political conflict and triggering protests, arrests and increased violence between the state, the military and ultra-Orthodox leadership. In the minds of many ultra-Orthodox, the army served as a “melting pot” that risked secularising ultra-Orthodox recruits and distracting them from Torah study, which their leaders framed as a form of national service of its own, providing “spiritual protection” for the Jewish people, Benjamin Brown, an authority on ultra-Orthodox Judaism at the Israel Democracy Institute, said. In such cases, Brown noted that Jewish law prohibits violence, yet ultra-Orthodox activists frame state restrictions as “shemad”, a form of religious persecution directed against Jewish observance and identity. In life and death terms, he said, even normally forbidden acts may be permitted, including at times Sabbath violations or force used in self-defence. He added that protests are generally framed as non-violent, though clashes with police are interpreted as defensive responses within this legal-religious understanding. However, reading much of a strategy into the protesters’ or parties’ aims was going too far, he added. “Haredi politics is largely reactive rather than strategic,” Brown said, with decisions made “ad hoc” rather than according to a long-term programme. Religion of division Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party’s alliance with the ultra-Orthodox comes at what analysts describe as a growing cost, as Israel’s society becomes more militaristic through its numerous wars and genocide. Polls show that about four-fifths of Israelis support conscripting ultra-Orthodox men or sanctioning draft refusal. A survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found 85 percent back sanctions on ultra-Orthodox men who refuse to serve, including ending state benefits for students whose families rely on them. Israel’s opposition has already seized upon the advantage. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, one of Netanyahu’s main rivals, warned a conference earlier this month that the failure to confront the exemption represented a “slow-motion path to suicide”. But the issue isn’t going away, academics warned. “The ultra-Orthodox community consists of about 12 percent of the Jewish population,” Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor of social-political psychology in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University, told Al Jazeera. “But their birthrate is very high,” he said, referring to ultra-Orthodox families, which typically have eight to 10 children. “So their percentage will increase considerably within 10 to 20 years.” Of these, only about half would take part in the military service undertaken by the rest of Israeli society or work in the jobs that power the economy, he said. “It is very unfair,” he said, adding, “The present government, which depends very much on their support, buys them with money.” However, given both the ultra-Orthodox community’s size and the strength of feeling involved, some analysts doubted the determination of the opposition to truly grasp the nettle of ultra-Orthodox conscription ahead of the election later this year. “Everything is moving faster and more dramatically towards the election,” analyst Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera. “As we get closer, the opposition is falling over itself to be seen as not bending the knee to the ultra-Orthodox while, at the same time, secretly preparing to bend the knee.” However, this was a race Netanyahu knows well, Goldberg added. “He’s been running it for 20 years. The ultra-Orthodox are a known quantity. He knows what he needs to do and, if it comes to who to form a coalition with, it’ll be Netanyahu they go to,” he said. “However, for the public, this is increasingly important. They’re fickle,” he said, “They’ve grown bored of killing Palestinians, so are now fixating on the ultra-Orthodox, their differences and whatever threat [those differences] may hold.”