Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday accused Israel's opposition leaders of hypocrisy on the issue of military conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, arguing they had dropped years of attacks on the haredi sector in hopes of winning religious parties' backing to form the next government.
Netanyahu named Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot, B'Yachad chairman Naftali Bennett, Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman, saying they were now courting haredi parties despite previously opposing legislation they had described as granting haredi men a blanket exemption from military service.
His remarks came as his Likud party separately assailed the opposition bloc, accusing its leaders of seeking to build a "dangerous government relying on terror supporters" and charging that the Arab parties would not designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Responding in a statement to criticism of his stance on the haredi draft law, Netanyahu said: "For four years, we saw unbridled attacks on the haredi sector, morning and evening, by the media and the left-wing bloc."
"The hypocrisy we are seeing now cries out to the heavens," he said. "Suddenly it is no longer an 'evasion law', but a 'soft draft law'; suddenly they are no longer 'parasites', 'draft dodgers', or 'destroyers of the state', but are given a clean slate, all for the left's lust for power, while violating all of their election commitments."
Netanyahu argued that Likud and the right-wing bloc were alone in working to regulate the legal status of Torah students so that those who study Torah could continue doing so within the law.
He said his camp had insisted on a genuine solution reached by consensus with haredi leaders and elected officials, ensuring that anyone not studying in a yeshiva would enlist in the Israel Defense Forces and "enter as haredi and leave as haredi," pledging to complete what he called an important task.
Following the statement, the Sephardi haredi Shas party announced it would recommend Netanyahu to President Isaac Herzog as its choice to form the next government as prime minister, as coalition negotiations continued.
Shas echoed the prime minister's language, saying in its own statement: "The hypocrisy of the left-wing parties cries out to the heavens, after they led an unprecedented campaign of vilification, defamation, and persecution against the haredi sector and Torah students, who are the bedrock of the existence of the Jewish people."
