The conflict that has raged in Gaza since October 7 has riven Israeli society. People are deeply divided over the government’s conduct of the war and the failure to secure the release of the remaining hostages. As a result, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is bitterly unpopular with the majority of people and is itself deeply divided.
So the decision by Israel’s supreme court that ultra-Orthodox Jewish men must be drafted into military service after being exempted from conscription since Israel was founded is a bombshell which is bound to further destabilise the Netanyahu government. John Strawson, an expert in Israeli politics at the University of East London, addresses some key questions.
