ULTRA-ORTHODOX PARTIES ACCUSE NETANYAHU OF STALLING ARMY SERVICE EXEMPTION BILL

Mon 03 November 2025:

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties have accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately delaying a bill that would formalize military service exemptions for Haredim, following another postponement of the legislative debate.

The bill, drafted by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth, was due for discussion last week but was once again postponed at the instruction of the Prime Minister’s Office, Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reported on Sunday.

An official from Agudat Yisrael, part of the United Torah Judaism bloc, told the paper that “Netanyahu does not actually intend to pass the law, but is trying to buy time and muddy the waters.”

The ultra-Orthodox parties accused Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party of “punishing” them in response to the massive demonstration held last Thursday in Jerusalem, where more than 300,000 Haredim protested the prosecution of yeshiva students who refuse to enlist in the Israeli army.

One senior Haredi leader said the government’s decision to delay the debate “shows that it is punishing the senior rabbis who called for prayers against the harm inflicted on Torah students.”

The bill — which would grant near-total exemption from military service to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students — has sparked widespread criticism, including from members within the governing coalition, who argue that it deepens societal divisions amid ongoing conflict and security pressures.

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The debate over mandatory military service, and those who are exempt from it, has long caused tensions within Israel’s deeply divided society and has placed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under increasing political strain over the past year.

While ultra-Orthodox seminary students have long been exempt from mandatory military service, many Israelis fume at what they see as an unfair burden carried by the mainstream who serve.

“Right now, people who refuse to go to the army are taken to military prison,” said Shmuel Orbach, a protester, “It’s not so bad. But we are a Jewish country. You cannot fight against Judaism in a Jewish country; it does not work.”

Under a ruling established at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948, when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community, men who devote themselves full-time to the study of sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto pass.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, or about 1.3 million people, and roughly 66,000 men of military age currently benefit from the exemption.

That frustration only intensified during wars over the past two years that exacted the highest Israeli military death toll in decades as fighting stretched from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.

Source: Independent Press with MEMO

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