🚨Israeli Police FORCED TO FLEE in Mass After Shocking Incident in Modiin

Ben Hilton (0:00)

This week, Israeli military police entered an apartment building in Modiin. The purpose of their visit was to arrest an ultra-orthodox Israeli for the crime of dodging the military draft. Just minutes after the police entered the building, word was passed from one person to another. Before the police even had the man in custody, hundreds of ultra-orthodox men had gathered outside. Police attempted to block them from entering the building, but clashes broke out and some forced their way through. The situation got so out of control that regular police had to be called in as backup for the military police. Eventually, all of the police ended up fleeing the building and the scene entirely without the draft dodger.

A celebration ensued with the draft dodger being paraded atop a vehicle to the cheers of those assembled. To many outside of Israel, this is a very confusing situation. Why are there still so many IDF draft dodgers in Israel? And why especially amongst Israel's most religious sectors? And why does this seem to be such a sticking point for the Israeli public and for Israeli politics more broadly?

Since the beginning of Israel's modern history, the Chavridim, or ultra-Orthodox, have been able to avoid the mandatory conscription in Israel. The reason given is because these young men choose to study the scriptures in Yeshiva during the period of their draft instead of military service. And historically, this has been accepted pretty generally inside of Israel. The thought process is that Israel needs soldiers to fight both on the physical front and on the spiritual front. Thus, the young men studying the scriptures were filling just as vital of a role as the men fighting on Israel's front lines.

Plus, the ultra-Orthodox represented a very vocal and very powerful block of Israeli voters, and changing the status quo could be explosive. But just over the past couple of decades, Israeli public opinion has been slowly changing. Israel has had to fight in war after war, and the manpower toll on the Israeli public has been severe. And it's very tempting to look at the some 80,000 fighting-age ultra-Orthodox who aren't serving to possibly help take some of the bread of the burden. This led to the Israeli government back in July of 2024 finally ending the general exemption for the ultra-Orthodox community. Exemptions were still handed out for specific circumstances, but generally most ultra-Orthodox are now required to serve their military time. But overall, this end to exemptions still hasn't been fully enforced. And as a result, just this last April, the Supreme Court in Israel ordered the government to explain their failures in enforcing this draft. This led the police a few weeks later to announce that draft dodgers will now be arrested and handed over to military police to begin their service. This is a very sticky situation because the ultra-Orthodox still hold a lot of power in Israel. Their two represented parties in the Knesset are in coalition with BibiNetanyahu, meaning if they were to find issue with the government, they could pull out sending Israel to early elections. Not only that, but Bibi desperately needs these parties to have any possible chance of rebuilding a coalition after elections. This gives the community leverage. As a result, the Israeli government passed a new law in July that would halt draft dodgers' arrests for seven months, basically giving time to peacefully get through the elections. But again, Israel's Supreme Court struck this law down. Again, police began arresting draft dodgers, and this is when the ultra-Orthodox pulled out another weapon. To date, ultra-Orthodox have been very successful in assembling en masse to demonstrate when they have something they want changed, and this time was no different. Mass demonstrations swept the country, blocking highways, roads, buildings, etc.

The result was de-escalation by Israeli police, quietly arrests petered out, and quietly demonstrations also fizzled out. We'll get into more on this in a second, but first, did you know Israeli soldiers have started wearing this exact patch on their gear? Since October 7th, it's surged in popularity inside the IDF as a symbol of faith in difficult times. This is a durable embroidered patch that velcros right onto a jacket or backpack or hat. Customers tell us this has become one of the most personal ways they carry their support for Israel.

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All of this pressure, both from ultra-orthodox demonstrations and from the Supreme Court, led to what's been happening over the past few weeks. To take advantage of the extra holiday traveling that's been happening inside of Israel, military police bolstered forces at border crossings and airports. This led to the arrest of over 200 deserters and draft evaders, and about 75% of those arrested were ultra-orthodox. And for context, ultra-orthodox only make up about 14% of the Israeli population today, so this is an outsized percentage. And these arrests have triggered yet again fierce backlash from the ultra-orthodox community, such as what we saw in the story that we started this video with.