High Court begins hearing over drafting ultra-Orthodox Israelis to IDF

The High Court of Justice is set to hear petitions demanding it annul a cabinet resolution that enabled the state to avoid drafting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the army.

The law that permitted this arrangement expired last year, so in June 2023 the government passed a resolution giving itself until the end of March 2024 to pass new legislation that might comply with the court’s 2017 ruling that blanket exemptions for Haredi yeshiva students was discriminatory and therefore illegal.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel — which has campaigned for decades for young Haredi men to be drafted — filed petitions to the court in July arguing that the government resolution violated the rule of law; contravened previous court rulings on the issue which determined the defense minister, who is the official who grants the blanket exemptions, cannot exercise this power without legislative authority; does “severe damage to the principle of equality before the law” which itself violates the court’s 2017 ruling on the need for equality; is “disproportionate”; and is “unreasonable in the extreme.”

The government told the court last week that due to the outbreak of war on October 7 it has not had time to formulate and pass a new law in Knesset to legislate a new arrangement, and proposed that it update the court before the end of March about an emerging proposal and then receive another extension till the end of June to pass the new law.