Haredi minister dismisses attack on his vehicle: ‘Stones were thrown at the car, not at me’

Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, dismisses an incident in which his car was attacked in Jerusalem yesterday by Haredi protesters angry about the potential conscription of yeshiva students into the military.

The demonstrators mostly belonged to the extremist Jerusalem Faction.

Despite footage showing demonstrators throwing stones at his car, striking the vehicle and hurling insults as he passed by, Goldknopf tells The Times of Israel that he doesn’t intend to file a police complaint, adding that the attackers “don’t represent the Haredi public or the Jerusalem Faction.”

“I wasn’t attacked,” he insists when asked by a Radio Kol Chai reporter in the Knesset. “There was no incident. The stones weren’t thrown at me, they were thrown at the car.”

Asked if he is worried by the level of violence during the protest, Goldknopf tells the reporter: “Not at all. Everyone can go their own way. If they think that is the correct path, let them continue.”