Unlike Gafni, Goldknopf says Netanyahu didn’t tip him off about Iran strike

By Sam Sokol 11 July 2025, 6:13 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf arrives at a United Torah Judaism party meeting at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on May 19, 2025. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

A spokesman for United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf says that he did not receive advance notice of Israel’s June 13 attack on Iran, which came a day after his party backed down from threats to bring down the government over the conscription of yeshiva students.

According to the New York Times, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed Degel HaTorah chief MK Moshe Gafni of Israel’s pending attack on Iran four days in advance despite him not having a security clearance.

Degel HaTorah is one of the two factions comprising UTJ. Goldknopf heads the party’s Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction.

Asked by The Times of Israel if the UTJ chief had been informed as well, a spokesman for the lawmaker states that Goldknopf “was not informed.”

In addition to Gafni, both Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee chairman Yuli Edelstein and Shas party leader Aryeh Deri had been informed of the attack in advance — a fact which likely contributed to their willingness to compromise on the enlistment issue to head off early elections.

Unaware that the Iran strike was imminent, Goldknopf decided to resign from his ministerial post in protest of the coalition refusing to pass legislation aimed at granting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva mass exemptions from military service.