UTJ MK Meir Porush delivered a speech from the Knesset plenum on Monday night, and referred to the letter sent earlier in the day to Police Commissioner Danny Levy by Beitar Mayor Meir Rubinestein announcing the suspension of cooperation between Chareidi cities and towns and the police due to the arrests of Lomdei Torah.

“Today, nine heads of municipal authorities sent a glaring red warning sign to the police,” Porush began. “A sign bearing a clear message: you, the police commissioner, are leading the country to anarchy. The Forum of Chareidi Local Authority Heads, headed by Beitar Illit Mayor Meir Rubinstein, sent a letter to the commissioner informing him that they will have no choice but to cancel all cooperation with the police.”

“This isn’t an easy decision, and the heads of the authorities are fully aware of the serious consequences. But when the police have in practice become an executive arm of the notorious attorney general, an official who decided to incite civil discord and trample every reasonable agreement, we have no choice but to fight back with full force.”

“The reality in which Israel Police officers, instead of fighting the rising crime on the streets, are occupied with hunting bnei yeshivos, avreichim and bochurim whose only sin is Limud Torah, is a distorted reality that has no place in a properly functioning state.”

“In a country governed by Jews, the police have turned themselves into the enemy of an entire public simply because of Limud Torah, a public numbering over one million people over the age of 18. In doing so, they are obliterating decades of coordination, daily coexistence, and basic trust that benefited all of us. Our message today to Levy is unequivocal: the responsibility for shattering this cooperation rests solely on your shoulders.”

“There is a final ultimatum here; if these arrests are not stopped immediately, if you don’t cease this persecution that is leading the country to complete anarchy, we will leave you with no standing in our communities. The Chareidi public will not remain silent while its sons are persecuted, and will not submit reports to a police force that has lost its trust and its legitimacy.”

“Mr. Commissioner, your duty is to come to your senses immediately-before it’s too late.”

(YWN Israel Desk-Jerusalem)