The tech sector, one of the engines of the nation’s economy, has slammed what it maintains has been the loss of billions of dollars in investments and damage to international diplomatic relations — including with the United States — as a result of the proposal to diminish the power of Israel’s Supreme Court, which serves as the sole check on government decisions.
Medical personnel have objected as well, and outside emergency care, hospitals in all cities save Jerusalem were closed for at least 24 hours.
In the Knesset, however, where the law passed Monday after an opposition walkout, there was euphoria and the lawmakers wasted no time moving forward on other parts of their agenda, which aims to infuse far-right ideology and religious conservatism in public spaces and government policy.
Israel’s ruling coalition, the most far-right in history, is composed of religious conservatives, settler activists, and ultranationalists who have pursued policies that, according to years of opinion polls, are not supported by the majority of the Israeli public. Such polices include the annexation of the West Bank, the land that Palestinians view as part of their future state, and the military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox, an issue that has long underscored social divisions in Israel.
On Tuesday, the United Torah Judaism Party began advancing a deeply contentious bill to enshrine into law the exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from mandatory military service. The bill proposes to define young men who spend their days studying the Torah, rather than serving in the army or participating in the workforce, as contributing “a significant service to the state of Israel and the Jewish people, and that this will have an impact on their rights and obligations.”
The Supreme Court has for years struck down attempts to formalize military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox minority, which has long enjoyed an outsize influence in government and been granted subsidies even while the cost of living has soared for most of the population.
If this law advances, it will pile onto an enormous, and unprecedented, challenge for the Supreme Court, which can no longer rule on the basis of “unreasonableness” as a means to countering Knesset decisions that it may see as violating the country’s founding principles. On Monday, immediately after the Knesset decision, Israel’s Bar Association petitioned the court to invalidate the new law, saying that, in its broadest sense, it “closes the door” to debate on rulings in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
“The law to eliminate the reasonableness clause was not enacted in a vacuum,” said the petition. “It is part of a declared plan, only a part of which has so far been revealed to the public.”
As the country stumbles into unknown legal territory, Israeli politicians and military leaders are beseeching the more than 13,000 military reservists against following through with threats to boycott their service on the grounds that the government is no longer protecting Israeli democracy — the basis of why they serve.
“The government of destruction continues to destroy our common life,” tweeted opposition leader Yair Lapid on Tuesday, he said referring to the new bill exempting the ultra-Orthodox from service. “If they don’t enlist, who will? If they don’t risk their lives, who will?”
Following the vote Monday, Lapid condemned the move as a “win” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a “loss” for the country, but he called on reservists to wait for the Supreme Court ruling on the law before not showing up for duty.
The prospect of a sudden personnel shortfall in Israel’s voluntary army has begun to damage the military, army chief Herzi Halevi said Monday in a rare statement. His requests to meet with Netanyahu before the vote were repeatedly denied.
Columnist Nahum Barnea warned reservists that not showing up risked transforming the military into a tool of the right-wing government.
“If you quit now, you will only make it easier for the government to turn the [Israel Defense Force’s] elite units into militias that are subservient to rabbis; you will only make it easier for the government to order illegal actions in the West Bank. If you quit, you will only accelerate the process in which the military is becoming increasingly religious and you will doom the future of women’s military service,” he wrote in the daily Yediot Ahronot.
Hard-line minister Bezalel Smotrich, who holds a special position in the Defense Ministry, has previously said that the Israeli army should “wipe out” a Palestinian village.
