Gafni: "This time I am not saying in advance that I will go with Netanyahu"

The chairman of Degel HaTorah, MK Moshe Gafni, provided an unusual statement this evening (Sunday) regarding the possibility that his party will again support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the elections.

"Unlike previous times, this time I am not answering in advance that I will go with Netanyahu," said Gafni.

This marks a shift after years in which Degel HaTorah and United Torah Judaism were considered an almost permanent part of the "Netanyahu bloc." His words come at the peak of the attempt by Likud and the Haredi parties to present a distance between them in recent weeks, following a prolonged crisis surrounding the draft law and the exemption for yeshiva students. The elections for the Knesset are expected to be held on October 27, and a struggle is already underway for the votes of right-wing voters who oppose the exemption from the draft.

Former Prime Minister and chairman of the "Beiyachad" party, Naftali Bennett, was quick to respond:

"One must not be confused — Gafni, Bibi, and Deri are one and the same. Whoever truly wants to draft Haredim and help IDF soldiers knows that he must leave the architects of evasion, Deri and Gafni, out of the government."

Bennett added: "In our government, whoever does not enlist will not receive a shekel from the state; we will transfer the money to those who serve and the reservists. Not a Zionist — not on my account."

Gafni's statement joins the public tension recorded in recent times between Netanyahu and his veteran Haredi partners. Only last month, Netanyahu acted to preserve the bloc and led the promotion of legislation intended to meet Haredi demands, including a law intended to prevent the arrest of Haredi draft evaders. The law was approved in the Knesset by a majority of 58 to 54, but the Supreme Court froze its entry into force with an interim order.

However, Netanyahu has since begun to change direction. Against the backdrop of polls indicating damage caused to Likud following the support for legislation for the Haredim, he began to appeal more clearly to "soft right" voters. Netanyahu declared that in the next government he would work to pass a "full draft law" that would meet the needs of the IDF, and said that a Haredi who does not study Torah would have to enlist — or go to prison.

In the Haredi parties, the change in tone was received with anger. The chairman of United Torah Judaism, Yitzhak Goldknopf, called the law that was approved earlier "another spin that was not intended to solve anything," and clarified that his party would cooperate in the future only with someone who would regulate the status of yeshiva students and avrechim. A senior source in the party even warned that the Haredim would not necessarily agree to return to the same point after the elections.