Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israeli men protested outside a conscription center in Jerusalem on Wednesday and clashed with police officers amid rising national tensions about a court decision ordering a draft for the insular community.
Israel’s military began sending conscription orders last month to ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 26 after the Supreme Court in June ordered an end to exemptions that had been in place for decades. Military service is mandatory for most Israelis over 18, with some exceptions, such as for most Arab citizens. Before the ruling, over 60,000 ultra-Orthodox religious students of draft age were also formally exempt from service.
At the protest on Wednesday, ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, many of whom appeared to be of draft age, scuffled with officers and also with counterprotesters who want the military to push forward with the draft to end what they see as an unequal sharing of the burden at a time of war and rising regional tensions.
The Israeli police said that they had sent reinforcements to try to maintain order, and Israeli news media reported that officers had sealed off several streets, used water canons to disperse crowds and beaten some protesters with batons. When asked about the response, the police said in a statement that officers had been “forced to act using various means” as protests continued and demonstrators broke through a blockade, with some protesters throwing water bottles. Five people were arrested, the police statement added.
The protest highlights the increased friction between Israel’s mainstream secular society and the ultra-Orthodox, the fastest-growing part of the population.
Some ultra-Orthodox Israelis do not fully recognize the state of Israel, rejecting secular Jewish sovereignty and military service. Many ultra-Orthodox see full-time Torah study as crucial, arguing that this scholarship is what has ensured the survival of Jews for centuries.
A debate long seen by the rest of Israeli society as one over equality has increasingly become one about security, too. Israel has been in a 10-month war with Hamas in Gaza, and skirmishes with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have intensified. Fear of a regional war still looms amid concerns that both Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, could launch retaliatory attacks for recent assassinations attributed to Israel.
A video from the Israeli broadcaster Channel 7 showed of one of the altercations at the protests on Wednesday, with one ultra-Orthodox demonstrator asking a counterprotester, “You want me to work for you?”
“Your protection is worthless,” the counterprotester says, in an apparent reference to the Torah. He soon punches the ultra-Orthodox man.
Israel’s military hoped to defuse tensions over the conscriptions of the ultra-Orthodox — some 4,800 are to be drafted this year — by focusing on unmarried male members of the community who are in the work force and not on religious students.
But last week, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protested outside the Alon military base. Out of 90 ultra-Orthodox candidates for service who were summoned to the base that day, only 12 showed up and completed the processes required for conscription.
Tensions over the draft pose yet another test for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has struggled to balance the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties that form a critical part of his coalition with his own nationalist base, some of whom no longer believe the exemptions are viable.
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