Fissures among Haredim – a challenge for Netanyahu

For years, Israel’s argument over ultra-Orthodox military service has told a fairly simple story. On one side are Israelis who serve, whose children serve, and whose husbands and wives spend months doing reserve duty. On the other are Haredi men who largely do not. 

Since 7 October, that divide has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Israelis have watched reservists return again and again to Gaza, Lebanon, and other fronts. Funerals for soldiers have been held across the country and families have reorganised their lives around military service. Against that backdrop, the question of why tens of thousands of Haredi men should remain exempt has become one of the most explosive issues in Israeli politics. 

But there is another story unfolding that receives much less attention.  

The draft crisis isn’t simply dividing Haredim from the rest of Israel. It’s exposing divisions inside Haredi society and politics itself. With Israel heading towards elections on 27 October, these divisions could matter enormously to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  

It would be wrong to suggest that Haredi society is suddenly splitting into those who support compulsory military service and those who don’t. The dominant Haredi leadership remains strongly opposed to compulsory enlistment. But attitudes inside Haredi society are not entirely uniform either. Politically, these differences are becoming more difficult to ignore.  

We talk about “the Haredim” as though they are one community with one position. They aren’t. Shas represents a predominantly Sephardi Haredi constituency. United Torah Judaism (UTJ) represents the Ashkenazi Haredi world, but is itself made up of two very different factions: Degel HaTorah, associated with the Lithuanian yeshiva world, and Agudat Yisrael, representing Hasidic communities. Even within those worlds there are different rabbinic authorities and different views about how far to compromise with the state. And it is these differences that we are increasingly seeing play out over the draft. 

Earlier this year, these differences were already visible over the state budget. Shas and Degel HaTorah supported its first reading, while Agudat Yisrael voted against it over the unresolved draft legislation. The differences have continued. In July, for example, Shas and Degel HaTorah agreed to remove a controversial provision from legislation recognising Torah study as a fundamental value, while Agudat Yisrael leader Yitzhak Goldknopf objected, saying he had not even been consulted. These are not necessarily ideological ruptures, but they do show that what we routinely describe as “the Haredi position” is considerably less uniform when you look inside it. 

And increasingly, the argument is not simply about whether Haredi men should serve. It is about how Haredi leaders respond to the pressure coming from the state. How far can Haredi politicians compromise? What sanctions can they live with? How much pressure should they put on a government they have helped keep in power? And at what point do they decide that the political alliance that’s served them for years is no longer delivering? That last question is particularly important for Netanyahu. 

In May, Rabbi Dov Lando, the senior spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah, said his faction had lost trust in Netanyahu over his failure to resolve the draft issue, and backed moves towards dissolving the Knesset. Degel legislators were subsequently instructed to stop cooperating with efforts to advance the government’s draft legislation. This was more than a warning. The dispute helped push Netanyahu’s government towards a political crisis and exposed something that had long been taken for granted: Haredi support for Netanyahu was no longer automatic. For years, Netanyahu was able to count on the ultra-Orthodox parties as some of the most dependable members of his political bloc. Governments changed, coalitions collapsed, and Israeli politics became increasingly volatile, but the relationship between Netanyahu and the Haredi parties proved remarkably durable. 

And it may remain so. The Haredi parties are unlikely suddenly to become natural partners of Israel’s centre or left, and anger with Netanyahu does not mean they have an obvious alternative. But there is a difference between having limited alternatives and being guaranteed to support the same prime minister. 

The draft issue is also causing problems elsewhere on the right. After nearly three years of war, military service isn’t an abstract political argument. Families have lived it. Reservists have served repeated tours. Parents have sent children into battle. This makes any attempt to preserve sweeping Haredi exemptions politically difficult among voters whose own families are carrying the burden. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party and one of Netanyahu’s coalition partners, says Haredim should serve, but has also backed compromises intended to avoid a rupture with the ultra-Orthodox parties. That’s angered some of his own religious Zionist supporters, a constituency in which military service is deeply embedded and many families have carried a heavy burden during the war. For Netanyahu, Smotrich’s predicament is another warning: concessions that keep Haredi allies on his side can cost him support elsewhere on the right. A survey reported by Reuters this week found that more than 80% of Likud voters want increased Haredi enlistment. 

So, Netanyahu has a problem on both sides. His Haredi partners want him to protect their way of life and the yeshiva world. Many of his non-Haredi right-wing voters want a fairer sharing of the military burden. Keeping one side happy risks angering the other.  

And this is where I think the narrative around the draft has sometimes led us astray. Journalists, myself included, use shorthand because complicated societies are difficult to explain. We talk about “the Haredim”, “the settlers”, “the secular”, “the right”, and “the left”. But the shorthand can become the story. If we keep describing the draft crisis simply as Haredim versus everyone else, we miss what is happening inside the Haredi world: different communities, different rabbinic authorities, different political parties, and different calculations about how best to protect Haredi life in an Israel that has changed profoundly since 7 October. 

Haredim may agree far more than they disagree about compulsory enlistment, but they do not necessarily agree about what to do about it. That distinction could matter politically. 

Netanyahu has survived enough political crises that nobody sensible should predict this will be the one that finally brings him down. His Haredi partners may ultimately decide that, despite their anger and disappointment, he remains their best option. But the relationship is under strain at precisely the moment when Netanyahu needs every possible partner to assemble another government. 

For years, Israel has asked whether the draft crisis between Haredim and everyone else can be resolved. As the election approaches, there is another question worth asking: can the Haredim resolve it among themselves? 

Paula Slier is a veteran journalist and foreign correspondent who has reported from conflict zones across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. She writes about media, geopolitics, and information warfare.