Liberman: Benefits to ‘lazy, draft-dodging’ Haredim will lead to ‘tax rebellion’

Outgoing Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman slams reported expanded benefits that the ultra-Orthodox parties have secured in coalition negotiations, saying the move will ultimately lead to a tax rebellion by secular Israelis.

“The minimum estimation is that they have been promised some NIS 20 billion ($5.85 billion). Funding educational institutions that don’t teach secular studies is costing some NIS 6 billion ($1.75 billion.) These promises to the Haredim will lead to a tax rebellion,” Liberman tells the Ynet news site.

Liberman slams the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties and the students who study in their yeshivas, most of whom do not serve in the IDF.

“Ninety percent of the yeshiva students are lazy draft-dodgers. The closer you come to the Shas and UTJ institutions, the further you get from God,” says Liberman.

“There is a group in Israel of 175,000 people as of today of yeshiva students between the ages of 16 and 67, and 90% of them are idlers and draft dodgers,” Liberman says.

“We are talking about billions of shekels of commitments for them that include allowances, food stamps, other issues such as splitting the Jerusalem and Heritage Ministry into two ministries with additional funding, building housing solutions for the ultra-Orthodox and building new institutions,” he says.