Leaders of Israel's opposition have intensified attacks on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid anger over a promised law to exempt ultra-Orthodox men from conscription despite troop shortages.
Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, former prime ministers who are set to be Mr Netanyahu’s main opponents at the next election, called the government's plans a betrayal of Israelis who are obliged to serve, and especially of reservists who joined Israel’s war effort in Gaza.
The crisis, which has loomed over Mr Netanyahu since he returned to power in a coalition where ultra-Orthodox parties form an important bloc, could split the government and Israeli society. The ultra-Orthodox community regularly holds protests, which can draw hundreds of thousands of participants. Violence sometimes breaks out at rallies outside enlistment centres or when police arrest draft dodgers.
Mr Bennett said Mr Netanyahu's plan is a betrayal of Israelis who had fought like “lions” since Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel's military response in Gaza has killed more than 70,000 people.
“There are only two options: to draft our [ultra-Orthodox] brothers so that they shoulder their share, or to impose on our reservists another 120 reserve days every year on a permanent basis, destroying their professional and family future,” he added.
Mr Lapid accused Mr Netanyahu, who had been due to make a statement on Tuesday evening but cancelled it at the last minute, of running away “because he knows that we know the details of the draft evasion law, and he has no way to defend it”.
He said the government’s proposed legislation is “yet another betrayal of our soldiers” and “full of loopholes that were intentionally inserted into it” to satisfy ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.
The leaders of Israel’s fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community are overwhelmingly opposed to military service, fearing that time in uniform would draw young men away from their highly conservative and isolated way of life. Many communities are also non-Zionist, even anti-Zionist, believing that the modern state of Israel is a man-made endeavour and not worth fighting for instead of religious study.
Many also say that staying in religious institutions to pray is better protection for the state and Jews than military service.
But with so many Israeli reservists continuing to pay the price of Israel’s wars, anger at the ultra-Orthodox exemptions is only growing. Around 24,000 draft orders of military-age men in the community were made last year, but only about five per cent enlisted. Around 80,000 men of the community are thought to be eligible for the draft but have not enlisted.
The arrangement excluding ultra-Orthodox men from service has been controversial for decades. The exemption came into place at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948, in a bid by the nation’s leaders to help the community rebuild itself after the devastation of the Holocaust.
About 20 years ago, Israel’s High Court ruled the exemption illegal. In 2025, it further ruled that a string of temporary moves to prolong it could no longer be continued.
