Bibi, Tsahal, & Haredi Jews

In an FB post titled “Southern Lebanon Will Never Become Part Of Greater Israel", I pointed out that, one more time Tsahal will fail in its mission to maintain a long-term presence in a land it annexed in the name of creating a “Security Zone” that neatly coincides with the Israeli government’s political agenda of creating “Eretz Israel/Greater Israel.”

At the end of my article I conveyed to readers with absolute confidence the fact that “Hezbollah will not wait 16 years to snatch the control of Southern Lebanon from the hands of Tsahal. I can guarantee you the invader will be pushed back to the internationally recognized border in a much shorter period of time, that will not exceed three years.”

Less than 24 hours after publishing my FB article, many alarming messages about the inability of Tsahal/IDF to maintain the war tempo surfaced in the Israeli media, and a list of concerns expressed by the army’s top brass and opposition figures, made it clear that a collapse of the IDF is looming in the horizon unless drastic measures are adopted to force Haredi Jews to serve in the army like every Jewish citizen who does his/her compulsory military service without any attempts to obtain exemptions. 

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir made the following blunt statement in a security cabinet meeting held earlier this week:
“I am raising 10 red flags before the IDF collapses into itself... there is tremendous concern due to the severe manpower shortage, especially amid the ongoing war. Even in peacetime, Israel would still need more soldiers – not fewer – on the border in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank. If the government does not add more soldiers, then there will be places with big gaps...” and big gaps mean more infiltration by Hezbollah fighters, and as a result a significant number of Israeli soldiers will lose their lives. Note that the most feared sources of trouble for IDF are Gaza followed by Lebanon.  Obviously, Lt.-Gen. Zamir does not buy Netanyahu’s tenuous claim that his war cabinet destroyed Hamas and Hezbollah. Both movement are still alive and kicking, and successfully absorbed the heavy blows inflicted by the IDF since 07 October 2023.

The shortage of manpower in the IDF has been acknowledged by Lt.-Gen. Zamir, and the long-term consequences highlighted and delivered to Netanyahu’s government. But how practical is the suggested solution of imposing/legislating compulsory military service on Haredi Jews?

Before answering the question, let us make an attempt to understand who are the Haredi Jews, and why they benefitted from an exemption to serve in the IDF since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948?

According to official statistics published in Israel in late 2024, there are approximately 1.39 million Haredi Jews in Israel, representing 14% of the country's population. This population is growing rapidly at a rate of 4% per year, with projections suggesting they will make up 16% of Israelis by 2030. 

Haredi Jews are also known as Yeshivists(Hebrew version Yeshivish) because their  identity and way of life are centered on intensive, full-time study of the Torah and the Talmud in institutions called Yeshivas. 

The overwhelming majority of Haredi Jews refuse to serve in the IDF due to the 
fundamental belief that full-time Torah study extends spiritual protection to The State of Israel, and is a cardinal religious duty every Haredim should strive to achieve. Haredims condemn the strong secular image of the Israeli Armed Forces, fear that IDF as a State institution will poison the spirit of Haredis with secular values that will undermine their religious way of life, threaten the social cohesion of a tightly nit community, and disrupt the serious efforts Haredis invest in seeking spiritual salvation. 

Haredis often articulate the grievance that the IDF, with mixed gender formations, non-kosher food, and a lack of strict Sabbath observance, erodes their religious values and principles, thus triggering the imperative to keep their youth within the walls of the Yeshivas, where they reject the legitimacy of a secular Zionist State in favor of a religious life focused on spiritual salvation. 

Despite the accusations leveled by Haredis about the legitimacy of the Zionist State of Israel, Haredis have no qualms about the massive financial support channeled to their communities by State institutions. Full-time study of the Torah and the Talmud, without serving in The IDF, and without making any meaningful contribution to the Israeli economy, does cost the Israeli treasury billions of dollars.

Based on 2024-2025 figures, Haredi Jews in Israel receive approximately NIS-New Israeli Shekel 13.7 billion, the equivalent of USD $4 billion disbursed to cover;
- Stipends paid to Haredi men studying in Yeshivas.
- Subsidies for Haredi schools and institutions that refuse to teach the State curriculum, alongside special grants to encourage Torah study.
- Massive funding for “Family Purity Programs”-FPP. Money allocated by the State for FPP is used to promote and maintain the Orthodox Jewish laws surrounding marital intimacy, menstruation, and immersion in a ritual bath known in Hebrew as Mikveh.
- Generous child support subsidies that the average secular Israeli family does not receive, or enjoys a reduced version of what the Haredi family obtains.
- Massive property tax discounts that can reach as high as 90%, a fraction of what a secular family pays for a property owned in any major Israeli city. 
- Last but not least, a long list of PERKS are enjoyed by Haredi communities simply for joining and supporting the current government of Bibi Netanyahu.

To have a better understanding of the political clout of Haredi Jews, it is crucial to point out that as of early 2026, Haredi Jewish parties hold a total of
18 seats in the 25th Knesset (Israeli parliament), which has 120 seats total. 
The Haredi representation is split between two main political factions: 
- Shas: A Sephardic Haredi party holding 11 seats.
- United Torah Judaism (UTJ): An Ashkenazi Haredi alliance holding 7 seats 
    
If for any reason Haredi Jewish parties decide to leave Bibi’s coalition government, his government will collapse, and his political future will be jeopardized with prison sentences associated with accepting bribes, corruption, etc...And to avoid the worse case scenario, Bibi always made tremendous efforts to comply with the exemption from military service demanded by the Haredi Jews. 

Secular Jews are irritated by the existing arrangements between Bibi and the Haredi leadership, and have often argued that what is extremely conducive to protect the personal interests of Bibi, does not support the national interests of Israel. No matter how they study the existing arrangements, secular Jews find it reprehensible that 90% of the Israeli population has to suffer financially to support “PARASITES” supposedly spending their lives studying the fiats of God, and speculating about the spiritual destiny of Israel. 

What started as a mere irritation, caused by less than five hundred Yeshiva students when the State of Israel was established in 1948, turned today into a major threat fueled by 1.39 million Haredi Jews, systematically undermining with their absurd way of life, fully financed by Israeli tax payers, the cohesion within the ranks of the Israeli society at large. 

Secular Jewish tax payers have already been burdened by the outraging cost of financing the Gaza war. According to figures conveyed by Ilan Rom, The Finance Ministry's director general, by November 2025 the Gaza military campaign waged by the IDF came at a cost of 250 billion shekels ($76 Billion USD), and tens of billions more in compensation for dead soldiers and damage claims.

The Iran campaign has exacerbated the untenable burden imposed on secular Jews. Since 28 Feb 2026, Israel has invested additional billions to decapitate and topple the regime of the Ayatollahs in Tehran. 60,000 reservists have been mobilized to defend Northern Israel against Hezbollah missile attacks, and stop the infiltration of Hezbollah fighters into “Security Zones" in Southern Lebanon controlled by the IDF. 

It is only a matter of time, for the Jewish secular anger to reach a boiling point where violence will pave the way for a civil war. All of it to keep one politician (Bibi) in power even if it means the total ruin of the State of Israel.