Is Israel Facing an Internal Collapse?

By Ayman Okeil

For decades, Israel has been portrayed as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, a homogeneous geographical, religious, and ethnic entity. However, the recent protests by hundreds of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) demonstrators on August 21, who clashed with the Israeli police while protesting the recruitment of their young men into the Israeli military, reveal the deep divisions within Israeli society. The Haredi Jewish community enjoys numerous privileges within Israeli society, and all Israeli political leaders seek to appease them. Haredi Jews have been exempted from compulsory military service in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), a fact that has long been a source of anger and resentment among secular Jews and some segments of the population, especially since the start of Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa in October 2023, which has resulted in the deaths of several Israelis.

On many occasions, protesters from various sectors of Israeli society have repeatedly demonstrated, demanding equal military service. However, these demands have been met with staunch opposition from Haredi Jewish leaders. Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef, has even urged Haredi community to disobey military orders, suggesting they should choose imprisonment within Israel or flee the country rather than serve in the military. In contrast, the leader of Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, has condemned this stance, stating that distinguishing between blood and blood is a betrayal of the homeland and the army.

Haredi Jews’ ongoing protests, marked by slogans such as “We will die and will not join the army” and “To prison, not to the army,” reveal their lack of recognition for the state and its national security, as well as their preference for a Jewish religious identity over civic identity. Many Haredi Jews refuse military conscription because their religious lifestyle may conflict with military norms, and some express their opposition to the liberal ideology of the state. Intellectual and literary figures in Israel have observed that this Haredi sect is fundamentally opposed to the ideas of citizenship and democracy, which they despise.

Nehemia Strässler, an Israeli writer, expressed in a March 2024 article in the newspaper Haaretz, that the crisis surrounding the recruitment of Haredi Jews, who make up 13.3% of the population in Israel, has exposed the fragility of Israeli society and the possibility of it imploding from within. This is particularly concerning as the Haredi community continues to insist that joining the army is a deviation from the Torah and the Talmud, and that mixing between the sexes is an affront to their conservative customs, while other segments of Israeli society, including the secular, attack them for opposing the idea of the state and betraying it.