Shas chairman MK Aryeh Deri launched an unprecedented attack Sunday night against Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara after she announced that she intends to revoke tax benefits from yeshivos and Torah institutions serving “draft dodgers” and to create a broad oversight mechanism over yeshivos and kollelim.

Deri warned, “The ousted and anarchist attorney general, who is racing ahead with arrests and harsh sanctions against Lomdei Torah, is leading the Chareidi public to the edge, and will trigger it to a tax revolt, a break from the police, and a deep rift with the state authorities.”

“Everyone for whom the future of the state matters must rise up against this madness.”

Deri also slammed the leaders of the right-wing bloc over their silence, hinting at serious implications for the future of the coalition partnership.“I cry out and warn the prime minister and the heads of the right-wing parties, Likud, Otzma Yehudit, and the Religious Zionist Party: ‘If you truly want the continued existence of the right-wing bloc, you must stand forcefully against this criminal persecution. Your voices are not heard!”

“It’s inconceivable that we’ll be the punching bag of this government, that they will harm everything kodesh and precious to the Jewish people, and you will stand aside and remain silent. To remain silent is to condone.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin responded: “I join MK Rabbi Aryeh Deri’s call not to remain silent any longer. For a long time, I have been calling on the government and coalition to unite, rise above all internal disputes, and put an end to the discriminatory judicial anarchy under whose feet many sectors are being trampled.”

“I call for an urgent meeting of the heads of the right-wing bloc parties. The time has come for us to make a series of operational decisions that will return control of the state to the government and put an end to the judicial anarchy.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: “I am very happy that finally everyone understands what I shouted alone from the first day of the coalition’s establishment — that the criminal and anarchist attorney general must be fired.

“Unfortunately, at the time, I was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Even now, something can still be done, and I call on my colleagues in the government to take immediate steps to send her home immediately. Without this, right-wing rule has no meaning.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)