The Haredi current-affairs panel "Black Hats" on the Kikar Hashabbat website aired a tense debate this week on clashes between ultra-Orthodox protesters and police, the widening rift between Haredi parties and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the political fallout from the Supreme Court fight over the judges selection committee.
Host Yossi Sergovsky brought together Rabbi Guy Alaluf, journalist Shlomo Taitelbaum of Calcalist, Ariel Shraiber of Srugim, and Shlomi Damri, who represents the Reservists Party. The discussion opened with Interior Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir's move to seek the dismissal of the Bnei Brak police station commander after footage showed him tearing a yeshiva student's pants during a protest, alongside the departure of protest convoys from the Jerusalem faction toward Prison 10.
Alaluf accused politicians of dehumanizing the Haredi public, saying, "They turned us in the public's eyes into subhuman beings that anything can be done to." Damri argued that violence against Haredi demonstrators is minimal compared with other protests and said lawful force should be used against road blockages. Taitelbaum distinguished between legitimate physical force by law enforcement and the humiliation of citizens, and argued that public leniency enables anti-Haredi violence. The studio then heated up over journalist Yaakov Rivlin's post calling to "beat up" Haredi protesters.
The second half focused on the High Court, where 11 justices were hearing the law changing the composition of the committee for selecting judges. The panel discussed Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit's comment about a political "chip" being inserted into the justices, Justice Minister Bezalel Smotrich's call for judges to remove their robes, and the implications for Benjamin Netanyahu's trial. Taitelbaum even opened Maimonides' "Laws of Kings" to compare biblical distinctions over judging kings with the public trust issues surrounding Netanyahu's case.
The program also covered the Haredi parties' boycott of coalition legislation until the daycare subsidies law and the Basic Law on Torah study are resolved, and Yair Lapid's threat to cut budgets, daycare subsidies and institutional support from schools that do not teach full core studies. The broadcast ended with a viral clip of U.S. Vice President JD Vance being ignored by a Qatari mediator at a summit in Switzerland, before the panelists chose their people of the week.
