Israel's Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Israel's government collapsed for the first time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not gather the necessary majority of at least 61 Knesset members due mostly to hot disagreement over its yeshiva students being exempt from military draft.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Israel's Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Israel's government collapsed for the first time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not gather the necessary majority of at least 61 Knesset members due mostly to hot disagreement over its yeshiva students being exempt from military draft.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kermit Zarley Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-13T18:44:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2019\/06\/YeshivaStudents.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kermit Zarley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kermit Zarley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/\",\"name\":\"Israel's Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-13T18:44:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-13T18:44:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02\"},\"description\":\"Israel's government collapsed for the first time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not gather the necessary majority of at least 61 Knesset members due mostly to hot disagreement over its yeshiva students being exempt from military draft.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Israel’s Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/\",\"name\":\"Kermit Zarley Blog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02\",\"name\":\"Kermit Zarley\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kermit Zarley\"},\"description\":\"Born & reared in Seattle, WA., Kermit lived 38 years in metro Houston, now in Scottsdale, AZ. He graduated from University of Houston w\/ BBA in 1963 and played on the PGA Tour full time from 1964-1982 and Senior\/Champions Tour in 1991-2001. Kermit co-founded the PGA Tour Bible Study in 1965 and was senior leader most of next 17 years. Kermit has three adult children and six grandchildren.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/kermitzarley.com\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/author\/kermitzarleyblog\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Israel's Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students","description":"Israel's government collapsed for the first time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not gather the necessary majority of at least 61 Knesset members due mostly to hot disagreement over its yeshiva students being exempt from military draft.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Israel's Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students","og_description":"Israel's government collapsed for the first time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not gather the necessary majority of at least 61 Knesset members due mostly to hot disagreement over its yeshiva students being exempt from military draft.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/","og_site_name":"Kermit Zarley Blog","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley","article_published_time":"2019-06-13T18:44:46+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2019\/06\/YeshivaStudents.jpg"}],"author":"Kermit Zarley","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kermit Zarley","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/","name":"Israel's Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-06-13T18:44:46+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-13T18:44:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02"},"description":"Israel's government collapsed for the first time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not gather the necessary majority of at least 61 Knesset members due mostly to hot disagreement over its yeshiva students being exempt from military draft.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Israel’s Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/","name":"Kermit Zarley Blog","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02","name":"Kermit Zarley","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kermit Zarley"},"description":"Born & reared in Seattle, WA., Kermit lived 38 years in metro Houston, now in Scottsdale, AZ. He graduated from University of Houston w\/ BBA in 1963 and played on the PGA Tour full time from 1964-1982 and Senior\/Champions Tour in 1991-2001. Kermit co-founded the PGA Tour Bible Study in 1965 and was senior leader most of next 17 years. Kermit has three adult children and six grandchildren.","sameAs":["http:\/\/kermitzarley.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/author\/kermitzarleyblog\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":9564,"date":"2019-06-13T11:44:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T18:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?p=9564"},"modified":"2019-06-13T11:44:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T18:44:46","slug":"israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/06\/israel-is-divided-about-its-military-draft-law-exempting-torah-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s Division about Its Military Draft Law Exempting Yeshiva Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Israel is a democratic country. It operates with a parliament that is similar to the U.S. Congress, yet different. The U.S. is pretty much a two-party system: Republican Party and Democrat Party. It also has two parliamentary houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Yet Israel has only one house\u2013the Knesset. And Israel has dozens of political parties, yet it has only 120 seats in the Knesset.<\/p>\n

Elections in Israel are supposed to be held every four years. Whoever is prime minister has fifty days to form a coalition government that must consist of a majority, thus at least 61, members of the Knesset. For the first time in Israel\u2019s history, the prime minister, in this case Netanyahu, could not gather together 61 Knesset members for his administration. Thus, the Knesset had to be dissolved, which was done on May 29. That means the April election didn\u2019t count. The future redo election is now scheduled for September 17 this year. Why did all of this happen?<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>It was mostly a disagreement between political parties about Israel\u2019s military draft. The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties favor exempting yeshiva students from the military. Yeshiva students are religious, and they study Torah, meaning the Jewish scriptures. Most of the schools they attend are comparable to our seminaries.<\/p>\n

This military exemption status for religious students is a very hot topic of debate in Israel\u2019s general population. Most Israeli males of 18 years must serve two years in the military. They often harbor resentment toward yeshiva students who are exempt. Ultra-Orthodox are the primary religious sect of Israel. They consist of 11% of Israel\u2019s population. Jewish religious politicians in Israel have been gaining political clout for decades. Evidence of this is that they keep gaining seats in the Knesset. This situation is so contrary to their past.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>Before Israel became a nation again, Orthodox Jews were always against the idea of Jews forming their own state. They claimed that Jews should not be political but should wait for Messiah to come and make them a great nation. After Israel became a nation again, in 1948, for a long time they wanted nothing to do with politics. I wrote about this in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia<\/a> (1990).<\/p>\n

In 2017, for the first time Israel\u2019s Supreme Court ruled that the nation\u2019s military exemption of yeshiva students was discriminatory and thus unconstitutional. It concluded that the Knesset had one year to abolish this law and replace it with another.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s politically-conservative Likud Party had won 35 Knesset seats in the April election. Likud said they could put together 60 members for a coalition, which included some Knesset members who were ultra-Orthodox, thus lacking only one. The Knesset passed a new law last year, but it retained this military exemption for yeshiva students.<\/p>\n

Defense Minister Avigdor Leiberman, head of the far right but mostly secular\u00a0Yisrael Beitenu party, had strongly opposed this military exemption during the election campaign. That is the main reason Netanyahu and his Likud Party could not field a Knesset majority. Leiberman is a bitter, political rival of Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

When I was young, the U.S. had a military draft. I had to serve. But all young American men had a choice: be drafted for two years or join the military reserves, which required six months active duty (with boot camp lasting eight weeks), and 5.5 years of reserve meetings that usually were one weekend per month. I chose the Army Reserve. But a quirk happened in which I had to serve my reserve duty for 7 years. This most certainly had a negative effect upon my professional golf career on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

I wonder what it would have been like if our nation would have allowed male seminary students to be exempt from the military draft. Surely there would have been resentment from those of us who served toward those who did not. That\u2019s why I resent President Donald Trump\u2019s apparent dodging of our military draft, by means of faking bone spurs, and yet boasting so much about what a patriotic American he is.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"