‘Why isn’t the IDF drafting Arabs?’ – Israel’s supreme court demands answers

Israeli Supreme Court orders the government to explain why it has not extended the universal draft to the country’s Arab population.

By World Israel News Staff

The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday chastised the government for failing to apply the universal draft law to the country’s Arab sector, more than a year after the court handed down a landmark ruling requiring steps to induct thousands of ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF.

A three-judge panel made up of Chief Justice Yitzhak Amit and Associate Justices David Mintz and Yechiel Kasher ordered the government to explain by March 1, 2026, why the state has never established a comprehensive draft policy for Israel’s Arab minority.

The order was issued in response to a petition by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, Mordechai Yair Balens, who challenged the ongoing efforts by the government to draft thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.

The petition was reportedly backed by MK David Amsalem (Likud) and noted efforts by the state to draft tens of thousands of yeshiva students on the basis of a June 2024 ruling ending the longstanding policy of draft deferments for full-time yeshiva students.

While Israeli law mandates a universal draft, in practice, various groups within Israel have been exempted either de facto or de jure from service.

Since the establishment of the state in 1948, the Defense Ministry has declined to issue draft orders to most of Israel’s Arab community, which makes up about 21% of the country’s total population.

By the 1950s, the army had reached agreements with the leadership of both the Druze and the Circassian communities within the Arab sector, under which Druze and Circassian men are drafted into the army while the women from both groups are exempt.

No blanket exemptions were granted to Orthodox Jews, though religious Jewish women were permitted to request service exemptions and men who learn full time in yeshivas could request annual service deferments.

While the deferment requests can be denied at the army’s discretion, traditionally ultra-Orthodox students have largely been able to avoid the draft.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down laws codifying the deferments, while successive governments have passed new versions amending the deferment system.

The most recent law was passed a decade ago, only to be struck down in 2017.

Amid a political crisis which saw a string of deadlocked Knessets from 2019 to 2022, along with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Gaza war, the government requested extensions from the court delaying the nullification of the 2015 draft law.

When the court refused to grant further extensions last year, it triggered a wave of draft orders for yeshiva students who suddenly found themselves without deferments.

The ruling sparked a backlash from ultra-Orthodox leaders, who argued that the IDF was both unprepared for and unwilling to draft tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men.

Critics also pointed to the inconsistencies in the application of the supposedly universal draft, noting among other things the de facto exemption for most of the Arab sector.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, an appointee of the previous government who has been targeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition for removal, has backed efforts to draft ultra-Orthodox men en masse while rejecting comparisons to the situation in the Arab sector.

Writing to the court in September in response to Balens’ petition, Barahav-Miara wrote that there was a “relevant difference” between the Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors, noting that the policy of not applying the draft law to Arabs has existed since Israel’s establishment.

There are, she claimed, “significant differences between the characteristics of the two groups” that prove there is “no basis for the claim of a violation of equality.”

Last month, the government’s representative informed the court that the state has no plans to dictate a policy to the IDF regarding the drafting of Arab citizens.

The disclosure highlighted the unofficial nature of the distinction in how the draft law is enforced, with the de facto exemption of an entire sector based entirely on army policy, without grounding in any law or government decision.

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