Slamming PM after reported comments, Goldknopf says law halting draft evader arrests was ‘spin’

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Hebrew media reported that he had asserted that a controversial law passed by his coalition halting the arrest of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders had failed.

Netanyahu reportedly stated that he will not pursue further legislation seeking to exempt ultra-Orthodox men from arrest or sanctions for draft dodging should he form a new government after elections.

Netanyahu’s statement “only confirms what was clear to us from the very first moment: the prime minister does not intend to regulate the status of yeshiva students and does not plan to introduce a conscription law, which is why we left the government,” Goldknopf states.

United Torah Judaism quit the government and coalition in July 2025 over the Knesset’s failure to pass a bill reinstating conscription exemptions for yeshiva students struck down by the High Court of Justice the previous year.

“The ‘arrests law’ was just another spin that was not meant to solve anything, and it is a shame it came into being. After the elections, we will only go with whoever regulates the status of yeshiva students and kollel scholars,” says Goldknopf.

Speaking with the Ynet news site, a senior UTJ source states that Netanyahu had failed to meet his commitments to the Haredim and that as a result “we would prefer to sit in the opposition and let others pass a law that Netanyahu is unable to pass.”

It is highly unlikely the Haredi parties would sit with the current opposition, which has pledged to enforce ultra-Orthodox conscription.