Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf during a meeting on Wednesday that he would expedite a planned law facilitating sweeping exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox community from mandatory military service, according to Hebrew media reports.
Netanyahu reportedly told Goldknopf, who heads the coalition’s United Torah Judaism party, that he would push to fast-track the exemption when the Knesset reconvenes later this month.
Goldknopf has threatened to vote against the upcoming budget several months from now if the law does not advance, which could force elections.
His threat came as the coalition remains divided over the demand by UTJ and fellow ultra-Orthodox Shas party to award blanket exemptions for yeshiva students from military service, which is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis.
Most Haredim do not currently serve, but the issue has long remained unregulated by clear laws, despite a High Court of Justice demand to explicitly legislate the issue, and an order from the court in June that the military immediately begin to draft eligible Haredi men.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
Also Wednesday, a group of Haredi extremists stormed a conference in Jerusalem that was meant to advance a framework for ultra-Orthodox recruitment.
לא ניתן לקיצוניים לנצח אותנו ????????????
תכננו להשיק היום את 'מתווה הצעירים' לשירות העם, מתווה שכתבנו יחד צעירים חרדים ומילואימניקים, במעמד חברי כנסת, רבנים ואנשי ציבור.
וזו התוצאה.
לא נירתע ונמשיך להאבק על מה שאנחנו מאמינים בו – הזכות להשתתף במאמץ המלחמתי לכולם. pic.twitter.com/dBynYjXYRG
— Tommer Vinner – תומר וינר (@TommerVinner) September 11, 2024
Images circulating online showed the extremists throwing chairs, heckling attendees and stomping on a poster as mounted police officers gathered outside to restore order, while disruptors seated in the center of the event refused to move.
The conference in Jerusalem was a joint initiative by Haredi and secular Israelis calling for an immediate framework to integrate ultra-Orthodox men into the military without harming the Haredi community’s commitment to Torah study.
Tommer Vinner, one of the organizers of the conference, shared footage from the disruption on X, writing: “We can’t let extremists win.”
MK Dan Illouz of Netanyahu’s Likud party was similarly defiant in his response to the tumult.
“We won’t be deterred by a group of extremists. The time has come for a true partnership between sectors. It’s possible. We’re brothers and if we stand together in combat — there’s no force in the world that could hurt us,” he said in a statement.
“Without the cooperation of our Haredi brothers, unfortunately we won’t be able to face the great challenges before us, because we will lack soldiers. To my Haredi brothers I say: Denounce this handful among you, and come join a real partnership of all the nation of Israel,” he added.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators clash with police during a protest against the military conscription of Haredi yeshiva students, outside a recruitment conference in Jerusalem, September 11, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The dispute over the ultra-Orthodox community serving in the military is one of the most contentious in Israel, with decades of governmental and judicial attempts to settle the issue never achieving a stable resolution. The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists any effort to draft young men.
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe military service is incompatible with their way of life, and anti-enlistment protests have been common across the country for many years. Meanwhile those Israelis who serve in the armed forces have long complained about an uneven distribution of the burden, a sentiment that has sharpened since Hamas’s October 7 attack and the subsequent war in Gaza, border skirmishes with Hezbollah along the northern border and elevated violence in the West Bank.
pdcc