Senior Haredi MK accuses Edelstein of playing politics after he publishes proposed conscription bill

Degel Hatorah chairman MK Moshe Gafni slams Yuli Edelstein after the outgoing Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman releases a draft of his proposed ultra-Orthodox enlistment bill ahead of a vote to replace him as head of the influential parliamentary panel.

“Yuli Edelstein released the law today, three weeks after he refused to release it because he had hopes that he would remain chairman of the committee — and only today he realized that he is being dismissed,” Gafni declares in a statement.

“It’s hard to believe that a Jewish person wrote something like this,” he says of the proposed bill, without referring to any specific part. “Everything with him is politics, nothing beyond that.”

Degel Hatorah is one of two factions comprising the United Torah Judaism party.

Edelstein had held the revised bill close to his chest, discussing it with both the public and members of the committee in general terms but not sharing its contents.

Edelstein is being ousted over his refusal to advance a conscription bill based on a compromise reached with the Haredi parties in June, under which most ultra-Orthodox males would continue to avoid IDF or other national service. UTJ, which, unlike the members of Edelstein’s committee, had seen the bill, argued that it did not “satisfy the demands” of the faction and its spiritual leaders.