The Irish Times view on Israel: the price of compromise for the prime minister

With half his country already on the streets fighting his attempts to strip the supreme court of power, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu now faces a potential standoff from within his hard-right coalition that could bring it down.

Two small ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, on whom the coalition depends for its survival, have threatened to block further judicial reform unless the prime minister introduces legislation to underpin the exemption of the Haredi community from compulsory military and national service in favour of religious study. Full-time Torah study should be recognised as a core state value, they insist, and allocated commensurate government financial support in line with an agreement between the parties on the formation of the coalition.

To secular Israelis, the deeply unpopular exemption is likely to prove yet more inflammatory than even the judicial overhaul legislation, not least in the ranks of the army reserves depleted by protesters against the latter.

As things stand, only a small minority of eligible ultra-Orthodox males – some 9 per cent, according to the Israeli Defence Forces – perform military service, compared to a national average among Jewish Israelis of over 80 per cent. Recent research has predicted that by 2050, 40 per cent of 18-year-old Jewish Israelis will come from the ultra-Orthodox community.

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The fallout between the parties has looked inevitable and was always a recipe for conflict with secular Israel. A cynical Netanyahu had gambled that the coalition of convenience would buy him some time to fight off legal challenges. And the ultra-Orthodox want yet more promises fulfilled – among them are proposals to segregate audiences by sex at some public events, to allow businesses to refuse to provide services based on religious beliefs, and to expand the powers of all-male rabbinical courts.

For Netanyahu, the cost of the compromises made to allow a government to be formed are becoming ever more apparent.