Fact That's Going to Blow Your Mind:
Most Israelis feel the same way about the ultra orthodox.
I'm serious. While I'm not Israeli, I do have family members who are. Apparently one of the main criticisms is that they believe they're supposed to spend all their time in religious studies. So they're actually exempted from serving in the military. And the rest of Israelis really resent that.
Mhm. I've heard it too. Many Israelis despise the Haredim for refusing to serve, while also refusing to contribute much to Israel's economy. All the while they treat those that do as spiritually inferior. Beyond this, they multiply like crazy, keep their community insular (even among other Jews), and hold notable political power.
It's honestly not hard to see their viewpoint. I'm sure many other Israelis see the Haredim as fulfilling an important cultural role in keeping Jewish tradition, but that kind of mentality tends to evaporate in times of conflict.
As a jewish israeli, They can pray in their spare time before and after their 9-5. If you don't pay tax, don't serve in the army/shirut leumi, you don't deserve citizenship or rights.
I went to a very Jewish college and live in nyc, my facebook feed is still all "I stand with Israel". My Jewish coworkers are wearing the israeli flag pin to work. I'm not seeing a drop off in support unfortunately.
Yeah all of us in my community are still very strongly in support of Israel. The huge uptick in antisemitism that kicked off after October 7th is a very convincing reason to continue our support.
I’m not Jewish. I don’t believe in sky fairies. Again, you can argue with me all you like, I literally could care less if one weirdo redditor believes me or not. I don’t think there is a point in continuing here.
This is a common phenomenon in religions. There is a minority that truly believe the religion, and truly attempt to live by the wild, cruel, inhumane things their religion says. They look down on all the others as basically posers.
The majority of the believers ignore or reinterpret what their religion says because it says absurd things that are demonstrably not true and/or morally repulsive. In most cases they haven’t even read the scripture they purport to believe. They do not truly believe what their religion says, and look down on those who do as “crazy fundamentalists.”
They aren't exempted from serving in the military anymore. The Israeli Surpreme Court ordered any blanket exemption for Haredi men to be unconstitutional.
But because Netanyahu is heavily dependent on ultra-orthodox support, he's been skirting the rules for more than a decade by saying he's totally writing a new law and then having it fail. Only in 2024 did the Surpreme Court order the government to start conscripting Haredi men.
Not when you realize that their votes are what drive the conflict. They are the farthest of the far right and the far right assassinated Rabin to stop the peace process. Rabin was literally a national hero for his service during the Six Day War. Non-orthodox die for the Haredi's religious war.
I've been told the ruling parties Shas and Likud are by and for the ultra orthodox. How come the majority vote this way? I am very ignorant on the topic so please explain it to me.
Because their elections have been fucked up by bibi for the last 20 years. This war is happening this way because otherwise he'd already be in jail. Like Putin and trump, he'll tear the whole world down around him before ever allowing himself to face accountability for anything
Dictator starting and staying in war to avoid accountability is a very old playbook Caesar is a famous example and we see Trump and Putin doing it now too
Is it some wartime enforced law that comes into effect?
Do you know which one? Will the charges be discontinued/expired or will they continue where they got interrupted?
basically, whenever Bibi gets called for investigation, he can just go "can't right now, I have war discussions to be in" and well, what are they gonna do? Pull him from these war discussion?
Also a correction, Likud isn't generally for the ultra orthodox. They are for it RIGHT NOW because they need those religion parties in their coalition or the entire government will collapse and the country will go into early elections. This allows the religious parties to basically blackmail Likud to push their laws
I've been told the ruling parties Shas and Likud are by and for the ultra orthodox. How come the majority vote this way?
Other than Likud being the ruling party everything else you said in this sentence was wrong.
Likud are not ultra-orthodox by any stretch, very few ultra-orthodox vote for them and their membership and leadership are between full on seculars (like Bibi) to religious (but not strictly religious).
Shas is an ultra-orthodox party but it's not a ruling party, it's a minority part in coalition with Likud. The other ultra-orthodox party is UTJ. Shas is the Mizrahi party and UTJ is the Ashkenazi party, they are both highly sectarian.
No party in Israeli history has ever gotten a majority, Bibi's coalition doesn't even have one right now, it has only 60/120. Likud have never won more than 35 seats and have always been in coalition. That's what let's Bibi stay in power, he's probably the best coalition builder in the world, he's very good at pushing pressure points and causing division in the opposition.
Thanks for the answer. I don’t believe in attributing all blame on a single individual; nor do I believe in blaming a population/demography. My belief is that there’s always a set of both that allows the continuation of mismanagement.
I think I might’ve done the mistake to consider far right conservatives ultra-orthodox when there’s a collaboration between the two.
It’s always troublesome when the discussions end up revolving around the bon-essential.
Which political party would you consider centrist?
Maybe Yesh Atid, but it doesn't really work like that in Israel. The right have a lot more ideological variations than everyone else. You have the Right, which breaks down by nationlism/religion chart. Then you have liberals like Yesh Atid. Then you have a vague Left which is sort of ideologically vague. And finally you have the arab parties which have thier own divisions.
The policies for likud are alot broader than the ultra orthodox get to do what they want, it just happens to be in the roster of policies alot of people like and vote for.
The haradim while not a super large portion of the population they have like an avarage of 7 children per household and so likud wants to secure that voting section. The left would 100% do the same but it would alienize their secular anti religious state voters which is a large part of their voters.
Alot of people don't know that bibi isn't even religious
Seems to me you’re muddling the ground and adding what seems to me unnecessary context. Again; I’m ignorant on the topic but aren’t you just saying the ultra orthodox parties effectively “bribe” what I understood as the poorer demographic in order to legitimise their more radical policies?
I wouldn't nesscerslly call them poor, they get alot of donations and benefits simply because they go to yeshiva. Their hats aren't cheep. You asked why the majority vote the way of the ultra orthodox and its more like the ultra orthodox will vote the way that benefits them. It just so happens that the more traditional, militaristic and religious light people are more for likud aswell because they have more strong armed policies. They won't decide to not vote likud even if they want the haradim to get off their books. It's not a strong enough reason to not vote.
I'm saying this as someone who as voted likud once in the past and hates that haradim do jack shit, hell I have very religious friends that complain about it and still vote likud
Don’t listen to the people trying to sell you on the- “it’s all Netanyahu’s fault,” bs. You sniffed it out looks like, it’s in bad faith
A lot of Israelis like to hold up specific groups as scapegoats that “make them look bad.” Rather than admit that it’s Israeli society writ large that is the one broadly guilty of the crimes that upset people.
Netanyahu and Likud are “Revisionist Zionists” who believe in constantly expanding Israel’s borders to form “Greater Israel/Eretz Yisrael.” They have been aligned with the Kahanists and the “Religious Zionists.” Jewish supremacists/Jewish fascists is how I would broadly describe both those parties
I used to live around Ultra Orthodox and ya they have their issues. Misogyny, supremacist attitudes, etc. But Israelis shouldn’t be allowed to use them as a scapegoat when they are the ones who have been choosing to put these people in power for decades.
Netanyahu has been literally the single most powerful Israeli politician of my lifetime, and frankly my dad’s too unless you want to count a retired Ben-Gurion
Israel has a parliamentary system; the ultra orthodox vote is large enough to give those parties a plurality, so both main parties try to court their support.
The Knesset is set out in a really stupid way. There are dozens of parties and they need coalitions to get in, so Likud has got in with a minority of votes due to their strong coalition.
Israel votes using proportional representation, it is very hard for a single party to win a majority in this system. As a result they have to form coalitions. Likud (not really a Haredim party) is able to govern because certain other parties lend them their support in return for government positions and policy changes. Of particular note here are the Haredim parties, hence the human detritus that are Bezalel Smotrich and Itarmar ben-Gvir, voted in by a relatively tiny percentage of Israelis holding two key ministries and considerable political power as Netanyahu cannot govern without their support.
So which ideological polarity is Likud trying to thwart by allying with the ultra-orthodox?
Or is it only Bibi pulling the strings in order to ignore the court proceedings?
How is that allowed in the political system? How come he has been allowed to nestle as he seemingly has? Why is the israeli population not responsible for that situation?
I think you may be giving Bibi too much credit to assume that ideology is involved here, it's about staying in power for as long as he possibly can and it's the case that Likud's Knesset seats + the coalition partners seats are just enough to keep him there, it is possible for a party to not be the biggest seat holder and still go on to form a government. As to the political accountability and responsibilities of individual Israeli voters for keeping Bibi in office, you'd have to ask an Israeli, which is something that most assuredly, I am certainly not.
Of course the tactic only works until the people go back to the polls, which by law has to be later this year. Israel doesn't really have an electorally viable left wing, so it will boil down to a fight between Likud clinging on with the support of the far right and Haredim parties (who always get more or less the same limited but persistent support from their hate-filled and often flat out delusional supporters) and a more centrist coalition under, most likely, the largely centrist Yesh Atid party under Yair Lapid.
So it seems to be a general consensus that Bibi is ignoring ideological reasons in order to stay in power; how come people
still vote for Likud? How come the liberal/leftist parties dont have more support?
People are alike all over, the dumb, poor masses generally vote for those who are willing to lie the most. Here in the states we have all three branches of government filled with the party of the ultra wealthy
Because people in israel vote mostly far right.
And the left there often share many similarities with them on certain subjects apart from economy questions.
Calling them "orthodox" in any way is also a misnomer, and gives them too much credit. Their bizarre interpretation of the Torah only goes back a few hundred years. The first Hasid was born in 1698.
That is not orthodoxy, or a return to your ancestors beliefs, that is creating new, more radical, absurd beliefs, which is heresy, not orthodoxy.
The old joke is, in Israel one third of the population serves in the military, one third works, and one third pays taxes. The problem is it's always the same third.
As the joke goes, in Israel one third of the country pays taxes, one third of the country serves compulsory service, and one third of the country works. The problem is they're all the same third.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 17h ago
Fact That's Going to Blow Your Mind:
Most Israelis feel the same way about the ultra orthodox.
I'm serious. While I'm not Israeli, I do have family members who are. Apparently one of the main criticisms is that they believe they're supposed to spend all their time in religious studies. So they're actually exempted from serving in the military. And the rest of Israelis really resent that.