Israel’s leaders have appealed to the United States not to proceed with a proposal to sanction an all-male Israeli military battalion known as Netzah Yehuda which is made up of around 1,000 Ultra-Orthodox and religious nationalist soldiers.
It’s accused of human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank well before the Gaza War broke out last October. Alleged victims include a 78-year-old Palestinian-American who was detained by the unit.
The Biden administration has been considering sanctioning the battalion under the 1997 Leahy Law which prohibits the US government from providing funds to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating “gross violations of human rights”.
Sanctions would mean a ban on transferring US weapons or giving military assistance to Netzah Yehuda specifically. They appear unlikely to contradict President Biden’s “ironclad commitment” to Israeli security. It would be the first time Washington sanctioned the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on grounds of non-compliance with international humanitarian law.
Following a series of exchanges between the two goverrnments, US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said: “The Israeli government has presented new information regarding the status of the unit and we will engage on identifying a path to effective remediation for this unit.”
The Reuters news agency reports Prime Minister Netanyahu called the threat of sanctions as “absurd and a moral low” when Israel is fighting a war in Gaza. His defence minister said that damage to one unit affects the entire defence establishment. The Israeli military insisted the battalion operates according to the principles of international law.
Assistant Professor in International Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin, Carlo Aldrovandi, writes in The Conversation that Netzah Yehuda’s recruits come largely from underprivileged, impoverished and marginalised backgrounds and include a significant group called hilltop youth. They are second-generation settlers who were born and raised in settlements in Palestinian territories and who consider Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, to be their home, rather than Israel proper.
Maintaining the Ultra-Orthodox battalion is crucial for the IDF which urgently needs to bolster military numbers and engage more soldiers from the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) community following the Hamas attacks of October 7 which exposed the critical need for Israel to have a larger army.
The government is expediting the enlistment of more army-age Haredi men into the IDF. They have been exempt from the compulsory draft affecting all other Israeli Jews since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, but probably not for much longer.
Israel’s Supreme Court recently ruled that around 13,000 previously exempt religious students of army age must be recruited into the IDF from April. It instructed the government to immediately suspend special educational subsidies that support religious students if those students failed to answer their military call-ups.
As Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox community has grown to make up 13% of the nation’s population, so has resentment and anger over privileges for Haredi students who receive a monthly stipend of between A$190 and A$320 from the state to study at a yeshiva (seminary), instead of serving in the military.
Barak Seir, a former adviser to Ariyeh Deri who leads the Shas Haredi party which contributes 11 seats to the Netanyahu coalition government’s slim majority of 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament), observed: “From the moment of the court ruling, the Haredi parties have been in utter shock. They were stunned by the ruling that funding will stop immediately. This is the worst situation the Haredim have ever been in.”
19-year-old Haredi Yehuda Cohen told The Guardian: “I will never enter the army. For us, studying the Torah is everything. We live by the word of God, who is above everything. We will follow the directions of our rabbis. Our community members in the government will fight for us. You see, studying the Torah, especially in these days of conflict, is a way for us to fight the war.”
Moshe Roth, a Haredi lawmaker, agrees. “This is a make it or break it. The only way to protect the Torah and to keep it alive, as it has been for the last 3,500 years, is by having yeshivas” he declared.
Roughly 1,000 Haredi men currently serve voluntarily in the military — nearly all of them in the Netzah Yehuda battalion. That’s still less than one percent of all soldiers. For religious reasons, Haredi men refuse to serve alongside women and that presents a problem that is yet to be sorted out by the IDF which is not logistically prepared to absorb large numbers of highly conservative men who won’t fight alongside women.
