Shas minister decries government’s ‘terrible persecution’ of yeshiva students

Announcing the ultra-Orthodox Shas party’s exit from the government following a meeting of its ruling Council of Torah Sages, Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli decries what he calls the “continued terrible persecution against the holy yeshiva students” and blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party for the break.

Reading from a statement by the Council of Torah Sages, Malkieli says that the rabbis were angered by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein’s decision to walk back promises regarding a proposed bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment, as well as recent moves by the IDF and attorney general to increase enforcement against draft dodgers, Malkieli says, calling such efforts “nothing less than cruel and criminal persecution against yeshiva students.”

Edelstein, he asserts, had “reversed himself on all agreements and added draconian and unacceptable demands whose sole purpose is to harm and humiliate the Torah scholars.”

With the “persecution against yeshiva students continuing and in the absence of a law regulating their status, the Council of Torah Sages instructed the representatives of the Shas movement to immediately resign from all their positions in the government,” Malkieli declares.

Despite quitting the government, Shas did not follow fellow ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism’s example and exit the coalition, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still holding a parliamentary majority of 61 out of 120 seats. This leaves an opening for a possible Shas return to government in the future.

Shas will also not join forces with leftwing opposition parties and will retain its seats on Knesset committees, Malkieli adds.

According to the council, “there is no room for any cooperation with the leftist and opposition parties, since they too led the wild incitement against the Torah scholars.”

In what appears to be a veiled threat, the rabbinic panel also instructs the party’s lawmakers to enact a law exempting yeshiva students from military service “as soon as possible and no later than the opening of the Knesset winter session, so that it will be possible to maintain the existence of the government and the coalition partnership.”

The Knesset is set to enter a nearly three-month-long recess on July 27 and reconvene on October 19.