From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
UTJ lawmaker Porush says Haredim may have to go after attorney general ‘with sticks and stones’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush declares that if Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara “does not stop persecuting Torah scholars” by pushing for their arrest over draft evasion, there will be “no choice” but to “drive her out with sticks and stones.”
Addressing representatives of local authorities belonging to his Shlomei Emunim political movement — part of the UTJ party’s Agudat Yisrael faction — at a conference in Betar Illit, Porush says that they “must be prepared together for a difficult and complex campaign” against efforts to conscript yeshiva students into the IDF.
“The day may not be far off when I will contact you with the decision that we must completely disassociate ourselves from cooperation with other government authorities that are taking part in the persecution against us. We may have to lead economic moves that will shake the economy and make the other side understand that we cannot be messed with,” Porush says.
His remarks echo Shas chairman Aryeh Deri’s threat of a Haredi “tax revolt,” and Degel HaTorah chairman Moshe Gafni’s recent instruction to local party representatives on regional councils across the country to halt all cooperation with the police over the arrest of yeshiva students.
“I saw this week that Ehud Barak, former prime minister and chief of staff, one of the leaders of the Kaplanists [the term used by many to refer to left-wing and anti-government activists], said that ‘if Netanyahu tries to sabotage the elections, there will be no choice but to expel him with sticks and stones,” Porush says. “Once war has been declared against the world of the Torah, everything that is permitted to them is permitted to us, and if necessary, even more than that.”
Last month, Porush appeared to call on police to refuse orders to arrest yeshiva students who disobey draft orders, stating that they should “think carefully” about their actions.
A 2025 Times of Israel investigation found that a telephone hotline linked to Porush, then a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, was counseling callers to “just ignore” summonses to the IDF’s recruitment bureau.
Under Israeli law, someone inciting others to evade service during wartime is liable to a prison term of 15 years.
The Times of Israel Community.