The political implications of a recent coalition crisis over conscription law between secular and religious parties that threatens to force early elections are still unclear. Indeed, the dust has not yet settled after Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism threatened to stall voting on the state budget unless an amendment to Israel's Defense Service Law (ensuring exemptions from military service for Torah scholars) is passed. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, for his part, threatened to withdraw from the coalition, effectively ending it, if the budget is not passed by March 15.
The amendment in question, proposed by UTJ, aims to address a 2017 High Court of Justice ruling that gave the Knesset a September deadline to fix military exemptions it struck down.
But even though the crisis is not yet over, and its final outcome is still unclear, the cat is already out of the bag: The draft exemption legislation is one big bluff.
How do we know that? We know it because the ultra-Orthodox MKs have given up. They were pushed into a corner and capitulated. They initially wanted to legislate a basic law anchoring Torah study in Israel's de facto constitution (in the absence of a written constitution, Israel has constitutional "basic laws") as a national interest, which would facilitate the legal exemptions they desire, but they abandoned these efforts.
They backed down from their demand for a prolonged adjustment period (allowing the ultra-Orthodox community time to acclimate to the new legislation, after having been exempt from mandatory military service for decades), agreeing to shorten the adjustment window by two years. They even agreed to a stipulation that if the ultra-Orthodox community fails to meet the draft quotas set by the Defense Ministry, the new legislation will be revoked and the mandatory draft will apply to all.
The current iteration of Israel's Defense Service Law was meant to prove to the High Court and to the citizens of the State of Israel that there is equality, or at the very least that there is a plan for the ultra-Orthodox to ultimately serve in the Israel Defense Forces. So why did they concede on so many demands, and in a way that appears to put them at a disadvantage? Because they know the truth – there is actually no risk. The draft bill is a bluff.
The law, with all its many specifics, was formulated in a way that ensures that the quotas will be met by ultra-Orthodox men who are already considered "lost" – haredi delinquents, modern haredim, Chabad followers and individuals who would have enlisted anyway, to name a few. They know full well that haredi Torah scholars studying at prestigious yeshivot will never be drafted.
The only thing the ultra-Orthodox lawmakers are after is something to tell their constituents. They need an official declaration they can relay to the rabbis and the ultra-Orthodox public, assuaging their fears and promising the unhindered future of Torah students.
Faced with the possibility of a mandatory draft that would only affect the margins of the ultra-Orthodox population versus holding out and risking early elections and losing the best coalition the ultra-Orthodox parties have enjoyed since the establishment of the state (for the ultra-Orthodox parties, early elections could mean a coalition with less favorable partners or, worse yet, spending the next term in the opposition) – the choice is clear. Risking everything to protect a bluff seems far less wise.
