"As part of the desperate attempts to grovel before a small group of journalists and politicians who try to dictate public agenda, the prime minister and his advisors are willing to turn the haredi community into a punching bag. The politicians have these shocked looks on their faces over the 'religious coercion' and the 'exclusion of women.' This is how the wave of incitement [by the media and the government against the haredi community] began to gain momentum and reached a level that is reserved for media which are mobilized in certain countries."
Haredi rabbinic leaders Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, left, and Rabbi Aryeh Leib Steinman, right. Yated Ne'eman's editors answer to rabbinic 'advisers' these two men control.
Haredi paper: PM betraying coalition partners
In editorial, United Torah Judaism's mouthpiece says Netanyahu turning ultra-Orthodox community into 'punching bag'
Kobi Nahshoni • Ynet
The haredi newspaper Yated Ne'eman, the mouthpiece of the United Torah Judaism party, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of betraying his "loyal" coalition partners.
"As part of the desperate attempts to grovel before a small group of journalists and politicians who try to dictate public agenda, the prime minister and his advisors are willing to turn the haredi community into a punching bag," said an editorial published by the Bnei-Brak based newspaper on Tuesday.
"The politicians have these shocked looks on their faces over the 'religious coercion' and the 'exclusion of women.' This is how the wave of incitement began to gain momentum and reached a level that is reserved for media which are mobilized in certain countries," the editorial read.
"We are not directing our complaints at low-level politicians from the opposition, but at key figures in the current regime: You, who have suffered from cheap slander on more than one occasion and suffered from a long delegitimization campaign in which you were even accused of incitement to murder - how are you not ashamed to cooperate with those elements that wish to overthrow you by conducting this brutal campaign against the haredi public?"
On Monday Knesset Member Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism warned that Netanyahu's "lack of support" for the haredi public amid the maelstrom surrounding the exclusion of women from the public sphere may lead religious parties to pull their traditional support for the Right in the next elections.
"Everyone knows it is not us who spit on seven-year-old girls, just as we do not embrace (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, Gafni said, referring to fanatic ultra-Orthodox. "Then, when people incite against us, Likud joins the chorus."
There's a halakhic principle called shtika k'hoda'ah, silence is equal to endorsement. It holds that Jews are required to speak out publicly against negative actions taken by other Jews in order that neutral observers do not make the mistake of believing those negative actions are supported.
But time after time, haredi leaders have failed to publicly condemn violence committed by so-called haredi extremists – and this is the case again now.
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv had the time to issue a letter banning all secular studies and all army service – even within special haredi programs. (Please see the post below this one.)
But he has not taken the time to issue a similar letter banning haredi violence or to condemn the actions of these haredi "extremists" who physically attack little 8-year-old Modern Orthodox girls in the name of "modesty."
Until haredi leaders stand up and do their moral duty and unequivocally condemn this violence, they have nothing to complain about.
Their silence has made their own bed, and now they and their community will have to lie in it.