As Israelis gear up for elections in January 2013, we’ll be hearing politicians calling for an “equal draft.” The demand that Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, men be conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) just like everyone else is very popular these days. Although this sounds like a bid for equality and social justice, it is really just the opposite—an attempt to stir up a disaffected public through a cynical appeal to the politics of resentment.

Not that we, the non-Haredi majority, don’t have good reasons to be resentful. Long-standing political agreements have allowed nearly two-thirds of all Haredi men between the ages of 35 and 54 to be “employed” in full-time religious study, living—albeit in poverty—on government subsidies paid for by taxes...