From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Lapid hails Haredi backing for hostage deal proposal
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Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid welcomes the ultra-Orthodox parties’ support for the hostage deal proposal presented by US President Joe Biden last week as “a moral step displaying national responsibility.”
“There is a large and clear majority in the government, the Knesset and the public in favor of a deal,” Lapid says in a statement.
Earlier today, the Haredi Shas party announced that it would support the deal. Its support comes less than a day after United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf tweeted that his party “will support any proposal that will lead to the release of the abductees.”
While both ultra-Orthodox parties have now come out in favor of the proposal, which Biden presented as being Israeli in origin, the Knesset’s two far-right national religious parties, Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism, have both threatened to bring down the government if the deal is adopted, saying it amounts to a surrender to Hamas.
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