{"id":489274,"date":"2026-06-12T13:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/489274\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:01:10","slug":"violence-escalates-in-israel-amid-ultra-orthodox-military-draft-protests-benjamin-netanyahu-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/489274\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence escalates in Israel amid ultra-Orthodox military draft protests | Benjamin Netanyahu News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s major political parties and bring demonstrators to the streets.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Their refusal to serve in the military is not, however, out of a moral objection to Israel\u2019s various wars, but instead because they view serving in the army as diluting their faith and drawing them away from studying it.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The threat<\/a> 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Praising the advancement of the bill, parliamentarian Yisrael Eichler of the UTJ described<\/a> it as \u201ca declaration of holy war against those who blaspheme God, persecute the Torah and oppose those who study it\u201d, as fellow UTJ member of parliament Meir Porush referred to the bill\u2019s opponents as \u201canti-Semites\u201d and \u201cenemies of the Torah and its students\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both said that Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties were compelled to bring forward the bill due to the \u201csystematic persecution of Torah scholars\u201d by \u201cdictatorial jurists\u201d, in a reference to members of Israel\u2019s Supreme Court, whose longstanding opposition to their exemption has seen the homes of individual judges targeted for violence by protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think ultra-Orthodox recruitment could be one of the main issues in the election campaign,\u201d Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy for politicians to target the draft exemption specifically, as society as a whole has grown more militaristic through the [Gaza] genocide,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Separate lives<\/p>\n

Since the 2010s, Israel\u2019s Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\"Ultra-OrthodoxUltra-Orthodox Jewish men gather on the Chords Bridge during the \u2018Million Man\u2019 protest against Israeli military conscription in Jerusalem, on October 30, 2025 [Ammar Awad\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

In the minds of many ultra-Orthodox, the army served as a \u201cmelting pot\u201d 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 \u201cspiritual protection\u201d for the Jewish people, Benjamin Brown, an authority on ultra-Orthodox Judaism at the Israel Democracy Institute, said.<\/p>\n

In such cases, Brown noted that Jewish law prohibits violence, yet ultra-Orthodox activists frame state restrictions as \u201cshemad\u201d, a form of religious persecution directed against Jewish observance and identity.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

However, reading much of a strategy into the protesters\u2019 or parties\u2019 aims was going too far, he added. \u201cHaredi politics is largely reactive rather than strategic,\u201d Brown said, with decisions made \u201cad hoc\u201d rather than according to a long-term programme.<\/p>\n

\"Netanyahu\"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has typically relied on the ultra-Orthodox parties for political support while stopping short of giving them the military exemption they demand [File: Ronen Zvulun\/Pool\/Reuters]Religion of division<\/p>\n

Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party\u2019s alliance with the ultra-Orthodox comes at what analysts describe as a growing cost, as Israel\u2019s society becomes more militaristic through its numerous wars and genocide. Polls<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s opposition has already seized upon the advantage. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, one of Netanyahu\u2019s main rivals, warned a conference earlier this month that the failure to confront the exemption represented a \u201cslow-motion path to suicide\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the issue isn\u2019t going away, academics warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultra-Orthodox community consists of about 12 percent of the Jewish population,\u201d Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor of social-political psychology in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University, told Al Jazeera. \u201cBut their birthrate is very high,\u201d he said, referring to ultra-Orthodox families, which typically have eight to 10 children. \u201cSo their percentage will increase considerably within 10 to 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very unfair,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cThe present government, which depends very much on their support, buys them with money.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, given both the ultra-Orthodox community\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is moving faster and more dramatically towards the election,\u201d analyst Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera. \u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, this was a race Netanyahu knows well, Goldberg added. \u201cHe\u2019s 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\u2019ll be Netanyahu they go to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, for the public, this is increasingly important. They\u2019re fickle,\u201d he said, \u201cThey\u2019ve grown bored of killing Palestinians, so are now fixating on the ultra-Orthodox, their differences and whatever threat [those differences] may hold.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most fundamental rift in Israeli politics is arguably not the wars it is fighting on multiple fronts,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,85,46,44,47,43,238,7319],"class_list":["post-489274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}