The bitter row over military service that could shape Israel's future

Furious protesters are denouncing Israeli security forces as "Nazis" – but this is not a scene from a pro-Palestinian rally on the streets of London or Paris.

Key points

• The flashpoint is a building in the city of Modi'in, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where a young ultra-Orthodox Jewish (or Haredi) man lives.
• Dahlia Scheindlin, the Israeli pollster, notes that the refusal to provide up the draft exemption by Shas and UTJ is damaging Netanyahu's coalition.
• Anshel Pfeffer has been a leading commentator on the Israeli political scene for years – now mainly as the Economist's correspondent in Israel.
• According to The rabbi, in a time of such danger, only Torah students could protect Israel spiritually.
• Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the exemption for ultra-Orthodox men from serving in the military was effectively null and void.

For context, the flashpoint is a building in the city of Modi'in, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where a young ultra-Orthodox Jewish (or Haredi) man lives. The police have come to arrest him after he failed to report for military service.

In practice, the clash in early October, seen by the BBC in a video, is one of plenty of in recent months in which one of the deepest schisms in Israeli society has become ever more exposed.

This widening fault line is playing out against the backdrop of the wars Israel is at present fighting, including the unresolved conflict against Hamas in Gaza – as well as increasing violence by extremist settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Once a tiny minority, the ultra-Orthodox remain a group apart even as their numbers expand year by year. At present, they are estimated to produce up regarding 14% of the population, and the birth rate within the community remains far higher than among other Israelis. If their numbers continue to grow at a similar rate, they could create up one-third of the Jewish Israeli population by 2050.

As the ultra-Orthodox community becomes bigger, so has the debate around the expense of supporting them with stipends so they can devote themselves to full-time religious study. Subsidies to the group are estimated to cost the administration 35bn shekels (£8.4bn) per year and, until lately, they were exempted from military service.

Now they're no longer an insignificant minority, they're facing pressure to engage more with wider Israeli society.

National security and the economy are two of the key problems this election. That means the division between the ultra-Orthodox and most of Israelis who believe they are not contributing their fair share to either is starker than ever.

With no outright majority probable for any current political alliance, and the future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in doubt, the role of smaller parties – including Haredi parties – will once again be crucial in deciding who will govern Israel.

To have any chance of staying in power, Netanyahu needs to keep the ultra-Orthodox parties on side, nevertheless much pressure there is within Israel for their special status to be diminished.

From the ultra-Orthodox perspective, their social contract with the Israeli state is increasingly coming under pressure. Their all but exclusive focus on the study of Judaism's religious texts – such as the Torah, the Jewish Bible – means their education system is separate and plenty of Haredim are not part of Israel's workforce.

For the ultra-Orthodox, the biggest matter of all is holding on to the exemption from serving in the IDF for students at traditional religious – or yeshiva – institutions. This dates back to the earliest days of the Israeli state when the Haredim were a miniscule community of survivors struggling to rebuild from the near extinction of the Holocaust.

But as Israel has become more embattled after the attacks of October 7, fighting wars on a number of fronts, their near complete absence from the country's conscription army has become more controversial.

Religious students and their rabbis believe that if young ultra-Orthodox men enter the military, they will be exposed to influences and behaviours that may decisively turn them away from their community. Beyond that, they believe that their staying true to the traditions of their community is vital for the particularly survival not only of Israel but the Jewish residents.

When asked not long after October 7 why the ultra-Orthodox didn't contribute more to the military in such an emergency, one of the community's most senior leaders, Rabbi Dov Landau, remarked that not only should religious students not serve in the army, but they shouldn't even visit the wounded or attend the funerals of soldiers.

According to The rabbi, in a time of such danger, only Torah students could protect Israel spiritually. "Salvation only comes through Torah learning, orderly Torah learning. And any neglect of or disruption to Torah learning, woe and alas for what will happen. The more Torah learners multiply, the more Torah learners growth their learning, the better. They protect us."

It would be a considerable understatement to say that this view is not shared by wider Israeli society. Polls have shown public backing for conscripting the ultra-Orthodox surge throughout the war in Gaza. Plenty of see it as a dereliction of responsibility by the Haredi community, produced all the more galling by the fact that such a stance comes at the expense of taxpayers. While plenty of Israelis have had to serve hundreds of days previously three years, the IDF has bemoaned a deficit in manpower.

Dahlia Scheindlin is a leading political consultant and pollster in Israel. She notes this problem is critical for Netanyahu and is key to understanding this moment in Israeli society against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, particularly among the political right. "Really the most burning, more immediate issue is the right-wing communities who are furious at the government for protecting the blanket exemption from the IDF at a time when, especially among the right, but really everybody in the Jewish community in Israel, is serving and many dying in these wars."

Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the exemption for ultra-Orthodox men from serving in the military was effectively null and void. That could have meant that those dedicated to full-time religious study would now be drafted.

Meanwhile, the reaction from the Haredi community was one of fury. Hundreds of thousands of Haredim held protests, blocking the main highways. And as with the incident in Modi'in, they tried to prevent the arrest of religious students for evading conscription. Protests have continued off and on, and densely-populated Haredi areas are often the backdrops for confrontation with the security forces. Consequences at the polls. This is a row that is playing out in the election.

There are two parties that have traditionally represented the Haredi community. One is United Torah Judaism – or UTJ – and represents Ashkenazi Jews, or Jews of European origin. The other is Shas, which was formed afterwards and represents the Sephardi and Mizrahi – Jews from North Africa and the Middle East. They share a core agenda, which puts religious study above all else, including any questions around relations with the Palestinians.

Both UTJ and Shas have been part of Netanyahu's coalition – and they applied their political clout to find ways to try to block enforcement of the Supreme Court ruling. On a number of occasions, they threatened to pull out of the alliance and bring the administration down. While Shas remained within the coalition, UTJ acted on this but continued to backing the administration from outside.

Centre-right politician Gadi Eisenkot, who's shaped up as Netanyahu's main rival in this month's election, does not backing their stance. He has created clear his belief that the idea of the ultra-Orthodox constituting a separate state within Israel with its own rules has become increasingly toxic. "A country that sends its best sons and daughters to fight and sacrifice their lives cannot tolerate a reality in which a state within a state exists, " he remarked.

All this has meant that the matter of conscription exemption for ultra-Orthodox men is the number one priority on the electoral agenda of both Shas and UTJ.

Notably, a recent remark by a UTJ parliamentary candidate, Eliakim Stark, has raised the temperature further. He compared the plight of ultra-Orthodox men evading the military draft to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. It triggered furious rebukes from opposition leaders from throughout the political spectrum.

Daniel Goldman, an activist who specialises in Haredi problems, states that the two main Haredi parties feel increasingly embattled and less open to compromise.

He notes the ultra-Orthodox don't believe that the state really needs their boys to bolster numbers. "It's at least partly down to the fact that the Haredi parties see the state as wanting to take their boys out of the community and change them from ultra-Orthodox to either regular religious or secular, God forbid, as they perceive it, " he notes. "And so in that environment of tension, they've actually hardened their positions."

Yitzhak Goldknopf from the UTJ, a former minister, has gone so far as to matter an ultimatum: "The Haredim will not change their way of life as there is an army and a war. If there is no choice and they must leave the country, they will leave."

But this is having a clear impact on the electoral fortunes of the Netanyahu coalition – of which Shas in particular has long been a key part. Without them, Netanyahu's alliance would fall short of the more than 60 seats needed for a majority in the Knesset.

Dahlia Scheindlin, the Israeli pollster, notes that the refusal to provide up the draft exemption by Shas and UTJ is damaging Netanyahu's coalition. "It is one of the main reasons why the coalition is unable to win back the kind of support that they had in 2022 when they won 64 seats, " she notes. "They're currently polling at about 50 to 52 seats."

All Netanyahu's challengers advocate for ending the ultra-Orthodox exemption and cutting funds to institutions or individuals who refuse the draft. On the left, Yair Golan has pressed an immediate mobilisation of those who are eligible.

So, despite statements from Shas and UTJ that they would switch allegiance from Netanyahu if he were to dilute his backing, there seems for now nowhere else for them to go.

Anshel Pfeffer has been a leading commentator on the Israeli political scene for years – now mainly as the Economist's correspondent in Israel. He notes Netanyahu's position looks shaky. There are two things that are bringing together the current opposition bloc, he notes. One is obviously they want to replace Netanyahu and the other is they are capitalising on this really hostile environment nowadays towards the ultra-Orthodox, mainly over the matter of the draft to the army.

"Netanyahu has been willing for plenty of years, to basically provide the ultra-Orthodox whatever they want. They're not going to obtain that from the opposition."

Into this arena of resentment and intransigence, a new Haredi party has emerged this year, presenting itself as a break with the traditional mindset of Shas and UTJ.

Essentially, the Haredi Public Party is offering a compromise in which the ultra-Orthodox would contribute more to Israel as a whole while maintaining the core of their identity.

For the first time in the ultra-Orthodox community, it is additionally fielding two female candidates.

One of them, Ziva Ginz, explained to the BBC her party's position on the military draft. Key to it is men serving being allowed to remain culturally Haredi. "Anyone whose life is genuinely devoted to full-time Torah study should be able to continue learning. Everyone who isn't sitting and studying for a full day should serve alongside the rest of Israeli youth, in frameworks where a young man can enter as a Haredi and finish as a Haredi, " she notes.

But it may be too shortly for such efforts at compromise to produce an impact this election.

Anshel Pfeffer notes that it's challenging to sway the base vote in the ultra-Orthodox community, where most still essentially follow what their rabbi notes they should do.

In short, the bitter row over military service that could shape Israel' s future is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.