Israel's top court rules ultra-Orthodox Jews must be drafted into military, in blow to Netanyahu

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN World

Updated 4:52 AM EDT, Tue June 25, 2024


Jerusalem CNN — Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, delivering a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has the potential to unravel his ruling coalition.

The court also ordered the government to withdraw funding from any religious schools, or yeshivas, whose students do not comply with draft notices.

“At this time there is no legal framework that makes it possible to distinguish between yeshiva students and those destined for military service,” the court said. “Accordingly, the state does not have the authority to order a blanket avoidance of their conscription.”

For all intents and purposes, Ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) Jews have been exempt from national mandatory military service since Israel’s founding. Ultra-Orthodox Jews view religious study as fundamental to the preservation of Judaism, as important to Israel’s defense as the military.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/middleeast/israel-orthodox-military-high-court-intl/index.html

[Hekate]

1. About time

[BlueWavePsych]

39. Yup.

[multigraincracker]

2. I suggest they pray harder.

Yep, that’s the ticket.

[3Hotdogs]

3. I'm surprised, our American Talibaners didn't take field trips to Israel to learn how to get things done.

Our guys are amateur night compared to Haredi. 10 Commandments on school walls? That's the best they got? 50 years to get Dobbs? These guys had their government by the nuts from the git-go.

[dembotoz]

4. prediction..an epidemic of bone spurs

[prodigitalson]

5. hahahahahaha!

[sboatcar]

6. So I guess they deem anyone who's not ultra-orthodox to be less than

So the less devout can do the dirty work while they keep their hands clean and send them off to fight? I mean that's probably not the case, but that's kind of the optics with it.

[BComplex]

11. Yep. Sounds a little bit like a caste system.

Or, well, white nationalism: "some people are just better than others".

Until THAT prejudicial idea goes away, we're all still headed in the wrong direction.

[MurrayDelph]

13. Typically, the ones who are the most hawkish

have been the ones with no skin in the game.

[brush]

55. And aren't many of them the ones attacking Palestinians in the West Bank and stealing their land?

But joining the IDF, no way.

[cab67]

20. For some of these communities...

...that's exactly how it is. I find such people to be hypocrites, given that some of them are loudly in favor of military action whenever a crisis hits Israel.

Not all Ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel are like this, but some are.

[BonnieJW]

25. My SIL is Israeli.

He, his brother, and both of his sisters served. I can't post what he thinks of these freeloaders

[nycbos]

48. I have an Israeli friend who is apart of my chosen family.

I have some idea of what he thinks.

[Scarlet Begalas]

28. Orthodox

Uh, no. This action simply adds more people to the pool of military. The people who had to go in before, still have to go in.

[Grins]

7. "...ordered the government to withdraw FUNDING from ANY RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS"

How very "separation of church and state" of them! And this in a religion-based political state.

[Mossfern]

8. Finally!

This is great news - my heart is singing.

[BeyondGeography]

9. An enlightened ruling grounded in present reality

Meantime, back at the ranch…

[Irish_Dem]

53. Imagine a US judge making "an enlightened ruling grounded in present reality."

Enlightened and reality, two foreign concepts to the American judiciary.

[IronLionZion]

10. Time for them to turn against Netanyahu

break up his fragile coalition.

[BComplex]

12. Or hold a trial for all the lies Netanyahu has told, all the crimes he has committed, and all

the destruction he and his party have done throughout the years. And then hopefully throw his very criminal and destructive ass in jail. He and trump can be cellies.

[Bettie]

37. More likely, they will throw their voices

and their political leaders behind Netanyahu's efforts to make the courts irrelevant.

[IronLionZion]

38. Sounds like MAGA, where courts, laws, elections, etc. are all irrelevant

[patphil]

14. This ruling will increase the anti-war movement in Israel.

Prior, these kids didn't have to lay their lives down, and therefore didn't have to look at the war with the same concern as other kids. Nothing changes your feelings about war more than the possibility of dying for your country in a war you may not believe in.
Look what happened in the US with the Vietnam War draft. My mother went from hawk to dove in one simple draft notice.

[TomDaisy]

24. GOOD

[CincyDem]

26. We don't agree about a lot of things re:Israel...but we agree completely on this.

The orthodox power throughout Israeli government and society has existed without accountability for far too long. And, they’re the fastest growing Jewish community both in Israel and globally.

Iirc, the definition of moral hazard can be translated as a separation of decision authority without consequence. At a societal level, the orthodox are Israel’s core moral hazard and connecting their influence with the consequences of exerting that influence in Israeli society can’t happen soon enough.

[patphil]

49. I fully agree.

[Celerity]

15. funny how they found time away from their studies to commit settler terrorism

[TomDaisy]

23. THIS

[Deep State Witch]

16. Good

Maybe now that it's their sons going out to kill Hamas, they'll be less inclined to support war. And we all know that they don't give a crap about their daughters except as breeders.

[Martin68]

17. An imbalance that distorted Israel's politics.

[Warpy]

18. Good luck to that rat bastard now on keeping his coalition of hard right military

and religious nutjobs together. The nutjobs are how he's managed to grease his way back into power even after sensible people have tried to oust him time after time.

Now that their own precious offspring have to go into the IDF and put some skin in the game, perhaps they'll find living in Israel less felicitous. Perhaps the tenements in Brooklyn will start to look better to them since the US is all volunteer and would grant a religious exemption from the draft.

We can outvote them. The coalition in Israel with the hard liners has been nearly impossible to break--until now.

[Pinback]

34. I wonder, will they be allowed to serve their stints in non-combat roles?

The IDF may soon be overrun with chaplains and stenographers!

[Warpy]

35. I doubt if the IDF will allow able bodied men to displace women in those jobs

The Israeli draft covers both sexes, but women are kept in traditionally female jobs, away from the fighting. I sincerely doubt that will change any time soon.

Mediaeval men are just going to have to suck it up, I guess. Maybe they'll do things like guarding Hamas POWs, performing logistical functions that take them to the front lines but not quite into the fighting. I'm sure the IDF will figure out what to do with them.

[cab67]

19. Ironically...

...some of these Ultra-Orthodox communities are among the loudest voices within Israel in favor of muscular use of the IDF.

[DavidDvorkin]

21. As long as it's other people's sons and daughters.

[TomDaisy]

22. Excellent news. If you're going to scream that you want war - go fight it.

[MOMFUDSKI]

27. When the IDF straps an injured Palestinian

to the hood of a jeep like a deer trophy it is way past time to stop this Shitshow

[TomDaisy]

41. They've gone Lord of the Flies.

[TomDaisy]

40. AMEN

[Scarlet Begalas]

29. Orthodox

"Ultra-Orthodox Jews view religious study as fundamental to the preservation of Judaism, as important to Israel’s defense as the military." I don't.

[EX500rider]

33. I understand why they originally did it...

The history of exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox dates back to 1949 - a year after the state of Israel was created.
Back then, there were some 400 yeshiva students in Israel. The country’s founding fathers allowed them to avoid military service because the ultra-Orthodox community and its yeshivas had been decimated by the Holocaust in World War Two.
In modern-day Israel, demographics have changed dramatically. The high birth rate in the ultra-Orthodox community means that it now accounts for 12% of the Israeli population.

But they are way past 400 now.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnee42vmn7xo

[The Wizard]

42. Netanyahu wanted to neuter Israel's Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court responded accordingly.

[DENVERPOPS]

43. Good one BRDS

You always have the newest and bestest news.........

[BumRushDaShow]

44. "newest and bestest news"

LOL

There's a lot of news out there but it is often buried amongst the excessive Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark stories.

[DENVERPOPS]

45. Or completely censored by the

95+% censored Republican owned/operated mass media....

Thanks for the job you do all of us in reality land.......

All I can say is, I Am Glad I Am Really Old.............but I deeply worry about my kids and grandkids.....

[BumRushDaShow]

46. I hear ya!

My credos is "Knowledge is Power".

[nycbos]

47. About time.

For 75 years, these people have sheltered behind the secular population of Israel and done absolutely nothing to share the burden of sacrifice. It's a long past time that they do so.

[Jacson6]

50. I'm against drafting people that have philisopical or reigious objections of being drafted into the military.

If a person doesn't want to serve for their philosophy or religion then the government should respect that decision. Citizens are not the slaves of the government. YMMV. IMHO.

[NoRethugFriends]

51. Fuck religious exemptions for anything anywhere

[keithbvadu2]

52. I don't envision this going smoothly. Like the DJT family, they like guns but not serving in the country's military.

[FakeNoose]

54. There's always bone spurs

I have a feeling Netanyahu is going to be sent packing ... real soon.

[tornado34jh]

56. I will bet you that this is exactly why he wanted to change the judiciary

He wanted only yes men in the court.

[Aussie105]

57. Exempt bible scholars: 'Kill them all! All Palestineans are HAMAS!!'

IDF: 'Sure, here is a uniform, here is a gun. Join in!'

Bible scholars: 'You must be joking! Look at my pale skin and weak arms! Years of sitting still and reading the Bible did that! Anyway, we are exempt!'

IDF, with evil grin: 'Not anymore! Welcome to the meat grinder! Try not to be the meat!'

Years ago, I collected my world traveller wife from the airport.
Gave a couple of young female Israeli soldiers on leave (I hope) a lift to a backpacker's hostel.
Pointed out some recent murders had occurred in local hostels.

Got that haunted look quite common these days on the faces of IDF soldiers on active duty.

No, I wasn't being nasty. More of a 'heads up' warning.
I was on the side of Israel at the time. Now, I'm not so sure.

War! What is it good for?