'Since 1948, members of the ultra-orthodox community have been exempted from enlisting in the army'

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00:01Is at the beginning of the end for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

00:06Monday evening, two ultra-Orthodox factions of the United Torah Judaism Movement announced they were quitting his government.

00:14At the heart of the fracture, mandatory military service.

00:18Since 1948, members of the ultra-Orthodox community have been exempted from enlisting,

00:24as long as they dedicate themselves full-time to religious studies.

00:28An unwritten agreement which the UTJ has demanded be set in stone via a law.

00:34However, with Israel's war on Gaza still raging, the army needs manpower.

00:40In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that this decades-old practice was no longer valid.

00:46And the judicial authorities and the army have recently began to take action against those who are now considered deserters.

00:52Ultra-Orthodox see army service as a threat to their lives of religious devotion.

00:58They want to recruit us into the army and destroy us.

01:01Thank God we welcome the decision of our representatives in the Knesset, for they have returned to us.

01:07They made the best decision they could have made.

01:09And I hope the state of Israel fails.

01:12There's no way the two signs will ever meet.

01:14They've been trying for 80 years and it didn't work.

01:16This is the moment of truth.

01:18Zero hour.

01:19And God help us that it won't pass without bloodshed.

01:22The issue of mandatory military service has long since divided Israeli Jews.

01:28Ultra-Orthodox refusal to serve has only widened the rift.

01:32Among the political parties representing the religious groups are seven deputies from the UTJ,

01:38a key governing partner for the Prime Minister,

01:41which helped him secure a comfortable 68-seat majority out of the 120 available in the Knesset.

01:48Shaz, the other Orthodox party with 11 representatives in the Knesset,

01:53now controls the coalition's destiny.

01:55The party is to meet on Wednesday to make a decision on leaving the government.

02:00If they decide to leave the coalition,

02:02it will leave Netanyahu without a majority in the parliament.

02:06Thank you, Rassar, also for the answer.

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