Shas Pushes Emergency Bill to Block Arrests of Haredi Draft Evaders

Shas faction chairman MK Yinon Azoulay said Tuesday that party leader Aryeh Deri is advancing emergency legislation that would completely bar arrests of yeshiva students and avrechim until their legal status is settled in a formal enlistment law. He said the measure would be moved quickly, before the upcoming election recess, and described it as an urgent stopgap.

Azoulay said the text is still being finalized. “These days and at this very hour we are sitting and clarifying the wording so we can bring it in the fastest and most efficient way,” he told Kol Hai radio. He added, “The law says something simple, until a draft law is enacted, a temporary order will be established that forbids arrests. The general public and opponents of the draft law say they are against the arrests, so let’s see them.”

Azoulay dismissed concerns that the High Court of Justice might strike down the initiative. “What the High Court will say is not relevant to us,” he said. He also attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his handling of the enlistment crisis, saying, “Netanyahu made a huge mistake the day he publicly announced that he does not have a majority to pass the draft law.”

He warned that the vote on the temporary order would be a red line for relations between the ultra-Orthodox parties and their coalition partners. Azoulay said that anyone who votes against it is showing that “the value of Torah is not part of him,” and that Shas will take the matter to the rabbinic leadership, which will decide who its next partners in government will be. He also aimed a direct threat at Likud lawmakers, saying those who oppose the bill would be pushed far from entering the Knesset in the party’s coming primaries and that “the traditional public will throw them out.”