Minister of Senior Citizens Affairs (Bayit Yehudi) Uri Orbach admits that he does not understand his dati leumi colleagues.

“Each time I am astounded by the gap between our efforts in Bayit Yehudi to save the chareidim from the ‘gezeiros of the draft’ and the outpouring of hate they display in Knesset and in their newspapers. Not that we need their thanks, but almost the entire party is working that chalila a single chareidi is not compelled to be drafted into the terrible army Hashem Yishmor”.

Addressing his colleagues Orbach adds “Faction meetings have been dedicated to diluting the ‘criminal’ sanctions for not complying with the draft until Moshiach arrives towards being considerate to the chareidi demands as much as possible. This is costly for at present, there is an all out assault against hesder yeshivos for it appears that Stern and the non-religious have despaired regarding the chareidim. Enough!”

“As a result of the attempts to please and appease the chareidim and show that we care about the chareidi Torah world (including those who don’t learn), we forget that a combination of Torah study and the army is ideal. A person must be a ben Torah and earn a livelihood and support his family, yes, nonsense like that”.

“So now the chareidi MKs get up at the Knesset podium, one following the other, and use every opportunity to defame us. ‘A house of goyim’ [they yell] as they soil their mouths about our rabbonim and we remain quite, silent. It is not pleasant to fight and they are really misfortunate and nebach but perhaps they can be with us on the fight for Eretz Yisrael (ha ha). Yes, politics often requires patience and forbearance but maybe sometimes we are taking this to an extreme”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)