Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking fire for overpromising. At the start of the war, he pledged “total victory,” and at least a slice of his electorate now feels let down by that promise – all the more so in light of recent events in Iran and Lebanon.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders are wrestling with an identical problem. They, too, promised their constituents total victory, which in their context means total draft evasion.
And as some strategists would argue about Gaza, the resemblance runs deeper than rhetoric: both promises were unachievable from the outset. Since October 7 and the 500-odd days of reserve duty that followed, drafting at least some of the haredi population has been inevitable.
The polling makes this hard to avoid. The numbers vary mainly by wording – “should the exemption end / should haredim be drafted” lands around 70%, “should there be sanctions on draft dodgers” around 85%, and “should full service apply to all haredi men” lower, at 57% – but the direction is unmistakable.
Israel is a democracy, and short of truly extraordinary political gymnastics, 80/20 issues of this importance rarely get ignored. Neither the haredim’s best friend in Likud nor the surprisingly sympathetic religious-Zionists can stand before their voters and call this issue unwinnable.
That left haredi leaders with a choice: concede and spare most of their community, or double down. The concession was there for the taking – “those who don’t study will be drafted,” a line both self-evident, given their own claim that Torah study is a form of National Service, and fairly mainstream within the community. They chose to double down anyway.
The choice has a logic to it, ideological and economic alike. Ideologically, the fear isn’t National Service but secularism: if large numbers of non-learners serve and drift away from religious life as a result, the haredi world would count it a catastrophe – and the fallout would land on the advocates themselves. The moderate leaders would be discredited and lose their flock; the hardliners would be vindicated and gain at their expense.
Behind closed doors, the leadership knows it can’t win. Recordings published by Channel 13 caught Rabbi Moshe Barzovski – head of the Slonim Yeshiva, a member of the Council of Torah Sages and a driving force behind Agudat Yisrael’s hardline anti-draft stance – voicing pragmatic support for drafting haredi youth who don’t study full-time.
“Those who study Torah need exemptions,” he says plainly. “But those who don’t study Torah – all those who don’t study Torah – they should be drafted.”
But they promised total victory, not compromise, and compromise does not drive turnout. The haredi public is bitterly disappointed with its representatives, blaming them for the sanctions and the arrests and judging that they failed to deliver. That won’t produce mass defection – there will be no breakaway haredi faction storming the Likud primaries – but it may well keep voters home on Election Day.
So the leadership is throwing everything at the wall: a Basic Law, road-blocking protests organized by the party, voting boycotts in the Knesset – anything to convince their base they can still deliver.
The trouble is that they can’t. The draft is coming. A more responsible leadership would recognize that the protests only deepen Israeli society’s resentment toward them, would tell their community the truth, and would give voice to the hidden minority – Barzovski among them – who already believe that those who don’t learn should serve.
The truth is, non-learners may only be the beginning. But haredi society is on a collision course with the Israeli mainstream, and the face of the community will have to change to meet the moment – something a radically conservative society resists on principle.
All I can say is: Welcome to the State of Israel, where the majority rules.
The writer serves as the English director of the Ribo Center and the editor of Amit Segal’s newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel.