The government’s refusal to formulate an enforcement plan for drafting ultra-Orthodox men, in defiance of a ruling by the High Court of Justice, places Israel before an unprecedented crisis. The Court faces only bad options-but it may have no choice other than to step into the shoes of the executive branch and move toward active enforcement.
Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90
On November 19, 2025, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the government must formulate an effective enforcement plan for drafting ultra-Orthodox men within 45 days. The government failed to do so, and as an inevitable result, a motion for contempt of court was filed against it for non-compliance with the Court’s orders. The State Attorney’s response to the motion confirms that the claim is well-founded: the government has indeed failed to formulate any effective enforcement plan, as the Court required.
The government’s treatment of the Court’s judgment is no longer merely another “dispute” between the judiciary and the executive of the kind we have seen many times in recent months. The government’s refusal to comply with a judgment ordering it to cease violating the law presents Israel with a direct challenge to the principle of the rule of law.
For decades, the issue of drafting yeshiva students was regulated through temporary arrangements and repeated deferments. Though, with the expiration of the previous law exempting Haredim from IDF service and the resulting vacuum, the Court ruled-quite properly-that in the absence of an exemption law, the security Service Law applies equally to all citizens of the state. The implication is that failure not drafting the ultra-Orthodox is no longer a matter of “policy,” but an active violation of existing law. The result is that the non-enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men likely constitutes the largest mass violation of the law in Israel since its establishment.When the government refrains from issuing draft orders at the required scale, or continues to fund institutions in defiance of legal directives, it is not acting within the realm of political discretion, but rather placing itself outside the normative hierarchy accepted in a liberal democracy.
At this juncture, with institutional dialogue between the branches at a dead end, the Supreme Court is required to decide not only the question of conscription, but also the question of its own authority.When the government is unwilling to comply with a judgment, the Court cannot simply abandon enforcement of the law. Such a situation would deal a severe blow to the rule of law. The panel of justices now faces several central alternatives, each with its own advantages and drawbacks.
The first option is to continue issuing orders to the government requiring it to draft ultra-Orthodox men and to formulate effective enforcement plans, while backing the Attorney General when she seeks to revoke the economic benefits granted to the ultra-Orthodox sector. The advantage of this approach is that it reduces the risk of direct confrontation between the Court
