The crisis over the military draft of yeshiva students is one of the most enduring features of Israel’s political system. The exemptions offered for what was a minority of yeshiva students when the state was established in 1948 have turned over the years from a trickle to a flood. Israeli decision-makers have no idea how to change course and to share the draft burden equally among all Israelis, despite fiery speeches advocating such a shift.

It is hard to explain to the 18-year-olds conscripted into compulsory service — three years for men, two for women — why a growing segment of Israeli society does not enlist and is exempt from the challenges and dangers faced by those having to serve. It is also hard to explain to the public, a majority of which supports mandatory service by young ultra-Orthodox men. Efforts by both right- and left-wing governments to introduce minor amendments to the law to create a semblance of equality to the blanket exemptions for yeshiva students have not withstood the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.

With numerous petitions submitted to the top court against the unequal draft, the government formed a committee of defense experts to devise a solution that would not force the ultra-Orthodox to enlist but would exact a price from yeshivas for refusing to send their students to the army. The panel issued its recommendations on June 11, the gist of which call for a quota of draftees to be imposed on each yeshiva and for sanctions in the form of reducing state funding for those that fail to meet the quota. The funding would be further decreased with each year that the required quotas are not met. Unlike a 2014 amendment to the law adopted by the Knesset that incurred the wrath of the ultra-Orthodox, the current proposed version would not criminalize failure to enlist, and draft dodgers would not be punished. The 2014 amendment was canceled by the next government and replaced by a new law.

The Council of Torah Sages, the senior rabbis who instruct Knesset members of ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael, which forms part of the coalition’s Yahadut HaTorah faction, dismissed the committee’s recommendations out of hand. They declared that unless appropriate changes are made by July 22, the end of the Knesset’s summer session, the party’s four Knesset members will withdraw from the ruling coalition, virtually ensuring the fall of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Any compromise, given that the Supreme Court would regard it as contempt for failing to abide by its rulings on equality, would be a stopgap measure until the next crisis.