Netanyahu to Haredim: Don’t trust Eisenkot bloc, Israel’s Jewish identity is at stake

As Gadi Eisenkot works to piece together a government — potentially with the support of ultra-Orthodox parties — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells Haredi lawmakers not to trust the bloc trying to unseat him, arguing that Israel’s Jewish identity is at stake.

“To our Haredi brothers I say,” Netanyahu exhorts from the Knesset plenum, “a narrow government [led by Eisenkot] must not be formed. Because I know what is at stake — not only the enormous security challenge, but also the great internal challenge of preserving the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”

Netanyahu tells Haredi lawmakers that they “represent a large public that is deeply concerned about the state’s Jewish identity, a public that loves Israel and has settled in the heart of the Land of Israel.”

He says that his bloc has “safeguarded and will continue to safeguard the sacred values of Israel — and you know very well who your partners in a narrow government would be, and what their attitude is toward Israel’s sacred values.”

“Our shared mission is to complete the formalization of the status of Torah students, and to pass the conscription law with broad agreement, in cooperation with your spiritual leadership,” says Netanyahu of legislation on ultra-Orthodox enlistment and exemptions that he has been promising for over a decade.

“I don’t need to tell you — you know very well — they will promise you the world,” he says of the Eisenkot camp, which is working to form a government without Netanyahu. “But one minute after a government led by the left is, God forbid, formed, all those promises will evaporate. They will do whatever they please, with a safety net provided by the Arab parties.”