Who are Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and will conscripting them sow discord? | Israel-Palestine conflict

This week, Israel’s government announced that starting Sunday, it would begin conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men for the first time in the country’s 76-year history.

The statement came more than a month after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the military was to begin enlisting ultra-Orthodox men into the army, upending a longstanding political arrangement that exempted them from compulsory military service.

The ruling threatens to antagonise large segments of the community, which argues that serving in the army threatens its way of life.

In addition, the forced enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men could destabilise Israel’s far-right coalition government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s coalition oppose the move, and their communities are protesting on the streets.

Any ultra-Orthodox party that pulls out of the coalition could trigger early elections at a time when Netanyahu’s popularity is at an all time low.

The army on Sunday will begin sending out 3,000 draft orders to ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 26 ahead of enlistment in 2025, according to local media.

So who are Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews and why are they so opposed to conscription?

Who are the ultra-Orthodox in Israel?

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews are commonly referred to as Haredim (Haredi in the singular) in Hebrew. They are the most religious demographic in Israel and typically segment themselves from broader society to devote themselves to prayer and worship.

The movement can be traced back to 19th-century Europe as a reaction to the modern world and fears that it would distract them from their devotion to their religion.

Some analysts have described Haredim as generally being more devoted to their way of life than to Zionism, a political ideology that initially called for the establishment of an ethno-Jewish state in Palestine and now is focused on protecting Israel as a Jewish country.

Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political commentator, said the ultra-Orthodox have generally adopted a neutral – even tolerant – position towards Palestinians.

“The sanctity of life was presumed to supersede the sanctity of land to them,” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s not about settling on territory. It is more important [for them] that Jews stay alive.”

Why don’t the ultra-Orthodox want to serve in the army?

Well, it risks upending their way of life.

Even before the state of Israel was created after the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 – an event known as the Nakba – an exemption was agreed upon for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

A small number of students were not obliged to serve in the army if they were dedicating their lives to studying the Jewish holy books in religious schools, known as yeshivas, which depend on state funding.

Over time, ultra-Orthodox Israelis grew to become a significant part of the population due to their high birthrate. In 2023, the group consisted of 1.3 million people in Israel, or about 13 percent of the population.

Each year, about 13,000 ultra-Orthodox men reach the age of conscription, but 90 percent of them do not enlist.

“Ultra-Orthodox communities have tended to actively resist conscription into the [military] for reasons of how they perceive their relationship with the state of Israel, … but also it goes back to the sense that it is not their conflict with the Palestinians,” said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “This remains mostly the case today.”

Do other Israelis want the ultra-Orthodox to serve in the army?

Yes, and they have for many years.

Secular Israelis have long believed that they have shouldered the burden of protecting the country by serving in the occupied West Bank and by partaking in Israel’s many wars in Gaza.

For years, Israel tried to rely less on recruits by fighting a “smart” technological war that consisted of aerial bombardments and siege warfare. But since the Hamas-led attacks on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and 250 taken captive, Israel has needed more reserves and manpower for its war on the Gaza Strip.

The war in Gaza has carried on for more than nine months and killed at least 38,848 Palestinians and uprooted almost the entire population. About 600 Israeli soldiers have also been killed in battle, and there is growing resentment that the ultra-Orthodox are not sending their young men to “defend Israel”, according to Eyal Lurie-Paredes, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Institute think tank.

“It’s important to state that the issue of drafting the ultra-Orthodox has been one of the main wedge issues in Israeli politics for decades now,” he told Al Jazeera.

“One of the only issues that unites [the settler movement and Zionist secular opposition] is that the ultra-Orthodox should be drafted.”

Could enlisting the Ultra-Orthodox bring down the government?

It is possible but not certain.

Netanyahu is in power thanks to a fragile coalition, which relies on the far-right settler movement and the ultra-Orthodox. The far-right and ultra-Orthodox both have instrumentalised each other to secure their own interests, Goldberg said.

He noted that the two largest settlements in the West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law, are mostly occupied by the ultra-Orthodox, who moved for economic and not ideological reasons since housing there is heavily subsidised.

But, he stressed, they are still contributing to the expansion of the settlements by living there.

Some ultra-Orthodox and far-right settlers might live together, but they differ on major issues.

The latter wants to continue the war in Gaza and entrench the army’s occupation in the West Bank. Ultra-Orthodox leaders, however, are pleading with Netanyahu to end the war on Gaza and secure a captive deal with Hamas, calculating that ending the war will reduce the need for more conscripts

“The settlers have an agenda driven by ideology, … and they want to actively pursue territorial expansion,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera, drawing a loose comparison to American evangelical Christians due to what he said is the shared tendency to use religion to advance a right-wing agenda as well as expansionist objectives.

“The ultra-Orthodox are nothing like American evangelicals. They just want to be left alone and maintain their own internal purity.”

While the ultra-Orthodox and far right have different interests, neither has an incentive to bring about the collapse of a coalition government that has served their interests so well, Lovatt said.

He added that secular Zionist parties harbour quite a lot of resentment towards the ultra-Orthodox, leaving the latter with no choice but to back the right-wing coalition.

“I think the ultra-Orthodox would not want – and have so far proven reluctant – to collapse this government because that would exile them into the political wilderness,” Lovatt said.