Israel’s Draft Crisis Is Not About Religion: Under War and Legal Pressure, the Army Adapts While Politics Preserves Exemptions

Israel’s draft crisis is often described as a dispute about religion, identity, or culture. In reality, it is something more basic and more serious. It is a test of whether a country at war can still turn citizenship into military manpower when legal rulings, coalition politics, and institutional constraints all collide.

For years, Israel’s argument over conscription has been framed as a clash between secular Israelis and religious communities, or between modern civic norms and traditional ways of life. That framing is familiar, but it is also misleading. What is unfolding now is not mainly a cultural dispute. It is a stress test of the state itself.

The question is whether a government can still mobilise broadly when the legal room to manoeuvre narrows at exactly the same moment that war makes delay more costly.

Two forces have come together. The first is the war itself. It has become prolonged, manpower intensive, and unpredictable. Combat units have suffered losses. Reserve forces have been called up repeatedly. Soldiers have been killed, wounded, or left psychologically unable to return to service. At the same time, the army has concluded that it must expand certain units and capabilities in response to the failures exposed on October 7. All of this increases the demand for people, especially for trained combat soldiers.

The second force is legal. Israel’s long standing system of blanket exemptions for ultra Orthodox yeshiva students depended on legal arrangements that were always fragile. That fragility has now become explicit. Israel’s High Court ruled that without a valid statutory framework, the state cannot continue mass exemptions or the public funding mechanisms tied to them.

Importantly, the court did not tell the government what policy to adopt. It did not design a draft system or set quotas. What it did do was narrow the lawful options. The government now must either pass legislation that genuinely compels service or enforce drafting under existing law. Continuing the old system by inertia is no longer legally available.

What the army actually did

It is in this context that the Israel Defense Forces issued a General Staff level order regulating the integration of ultra Orthodox soldiers. This order is not a political manifesto. It is an administrative document.

It lays out several service tracks designed to accommodate ultra Orthodox religious requirements while still allowing military service to take place. These tracks address practical issues such as daily religious study, dietary rules, and social separation. They are intended to remove long standing objections that had made enlistment politically and administratively difficult.

The importance of the order lies less in its wording than in its effect. For years, governments could claim that ultra Orthodox enlistment was impossible because no suitable frameworks existed. That claim can no longer be made.

By formalising these tracks, the army has removed the administrative obstacle. In simple terms, the IDF is saying that from its side, the runway has been built. If enlistment remains limited, the reason will not be a lack of military preparation. Responsibility moves elsewhere, to legislation and to enforcement.

Gender as evidence, not the argument

One part of the new order has drawn particular attention and controversy. Some of the service frameworks created for ultra Orthodox soldiers are organised so that women are not routinely stationed in those units. Women may still enter for operational, professional, or oversight purposes, depending on the judgment of commanders, but daily service in those environments is restricted.

This is not primarily a moral or ideological argument about gender equality. In this context, it functions as evidence. It shows how far the institution is being asked to bend in order to make partial mobilisation politically workable.

Rules based on discretion rarely remain neutral in practice. What begins as an exception often becomes routine. Informal discouragement hardens into expectation. Commanders, faced with pressure from soldiers and religious authorities, tend to choose the path that creates the least friction.

Over time, organisational culture adapts to these accommodations rather than containing them. When an army redesigns its internal norms to avoid confronting a political blockage, it is absorbing a contradiction that originates outside the military.

The issue is not whether the order is lawful or well intentioned. It is that the institution itself is carrying the cost of unresolved political choices.

A law that does not mobilise

While the army was building integration architecture, the government was advancing draft legislation that points in a different direction. Across various drafts and outlines, the pattern is consistent.

Instead of universal obligation, the proposed laws rely on targets and quotas. Sanctions are often gradual, delayed, or weak. Service can be deferred to older ages, reducing its military value. In some cases, civilian or national service is offered as a substitute for military enlistment.

These design choices matter because design determines output. Systems built around targets and exemptions do not produce mass mobilisation. They produce managed compliance.

Such laws are effective at preserving coalition stability and reducing immediate political conflict. They are not effective at closing a wartime manpower gap. Calling this approach mobilisation obscures what it actually delivers and what it does not.

Symbolism versus scale

The Hasmonean Brigade, the first dedicated ultra Orthodox brigade, has become the most visible symbol of integration. Commanders have been appointed. Ceremonies have been held. Official photographs have been released.

All of this demonstrates structure and intent. But war is not fought with symbols.

Force generation depends on scale. Architecture alone does not solve manpower shortages. What matters is how many people actually report for service, how long they serve, and in what roles.

A brigade name and a public ceremony cannot substitute for throughput. When symbolic progress moves faster than enlistment numbers, it signals an attempt to show movement without changing the underlying arithmetic.

Leadership under constraint

The tension between military needs and coalition politics has also shaped leadership dynamics. It was reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feared resistance from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi to a draft exemption law for ultra Orthodox yeshiva students, and that this concern was expressed in conversation with an American ultra Orthodox rabbi.

This does not need to be read as a claim about personal motives. It is better understood as context.

When senior security figures are associated with force generation priorities that conflict with coalition survival, they become politically inconvenient. Leadership decisions then reflect that tension. Institutions adapt by moving quietly, procedurally, and defensively, adjusting themselves rather than forcing a political reckoning.

The burden shifts downward

Once the General Staff order was issued, attempts to place responsibility on the army lost credibility. The remaining levers the IDF says it needs are well known: extending mandatory service for men in key combat roles and creating a stable legal framework for reserve service.

Both steps would spread the burden more evenly. Both have been delayed by political deadlock and legal hesitation.

The consequences are visible. The burden concentrates on those already serving. Combat soldiers and reserve families face repeated call ups.

Fatigue and resentment grow not because people misunderstand policy, but because they understand it clearly. When obligation becomes negotiable for some groups, it intensifies for others. Over time, this erodes trust in the fairness of the system.

What this case shows

This is not an argument about religion. It is a case study in how a state under pressure can preserve the appearance of universality while abandoning it in practice.

Courts narrow the lawful path. War raises the stakes. Coalition politics constrains choices. Institutions adapt. Norms bend. Symbols multiply. The core problem remains.

Israel’s draft crisis shows that mobilisation is not created by frameworks alone. It is created by decisions about who must serve and how those decisions are enforced.

Until that choice is made at scale, administrative reform will manage non service rather than overcome it, and the costs will continue to fall on those with the least power to refuse.