Netanyahu under mounting political pressure after party quits over military service exemption

is at the beginning of the end for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Monday evening, two ultraorththodox factions of the United Torah Judaism movement announced they were quitting his government. At the heart of the fracture, mandatory military service. Since 1948, members of the ultraorththodox community have been exempted from enlisting as long as they dedicate themselves full-time to religious studies. an unwritten agreement which the UTJ has demanded be set in stone via a law. However, with Israel’s war on Gaza still raging, the army needs manpower. In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that this decades old practice was no longer valid, and the judicial authorities and the army have recently began to take action against those who are now considered deserters. Ultra orthodox see army service as a threat to their lives of religious devotion. They want to recruit us into the army and destroy us. Thank God. We welcome the decision of our representatives in the Kassets for they have returned to us. They made the best decision they could have made. And I hope the state of Israel fails. There’s no way the two sides will ever meet. They’ve been trying for 80 years and it didn’t work. This is the moment of truth. Zero hour. And God help us that it won’t pass without bloodshed. The issue of mandatory military service has long since divided Israeli Jews. Ultraorthodox refusal to serve has only widened the rift. Among the political parties representing the religious groups are seven deputies from the UTJ, a key governing partner for the prime minister which helped him secure a comfortable 68 seat majority out of the 120 available in the Knesset. SH, the other Orthodox party with 11 representatives in the Knesset, now controls the coalition’s destiny. The party is to meet on Wednesday to make a decision on leaving the government. If they decide to leave the coalition, it will leave Netanyahu without a majority in the parliament. Alam chuva.

The United Torah Judaism party has decided to quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition over its failure to secure military service exemptions. Members of the ultra-orthodox community have been exempted from enlisting in the army since 1948. Watch this report by FRANCE 24’s Clémence Waller and Daniel Quinlan for more. 
#Netanyahu #orthodox #Israel

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13 comments

  7. why do you attack Israel all the time, even before October 8 when they retaliated to the massacre against them. They are the only democracy in the middle east, a Nato allie, and Tel Aviv is safe haven for the LGBT who are celebrated their.

  8. So extremist Jews want to be protected by Israel's military and expand into palestine, but don't want to fight themselves. This is the schism that'll destroy Israeli society.

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