UTJ lawmaker Porush warns Haredim may go after AG ‘with sticks and stones’

Ultra-Orthodox MK warns his faction could soon ‘completely disassociate ourselves from cooperation with other government authorities that are taking part in the persecution against us’

United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush on Tuesday declared that if Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara “does not stop persecuting Torah scholars” by pushing to arrest draft dodgers, there will be “no choice” but to “drive her out with sticks and stones.”

Addressing representatives of local authorities belonging to his Shlomei Emunim political movement — part of the UTJ party’s Agudat Yisrael faction — at a conference in Betar Illit, Porush said that they “must be prepared together for a difficult and complex campaign” against efforts to conscript yeshiva students into the military.

“The day may not be far off when I will contact you with the decision that we must completely disassociate ourselves from cooperation with other government authorities that are taking part in the persecution against us. We may have to lead economic moves that will shake the economy and make the other side understand that we cannot be messed with,” Porush said.

His remarks echoed Shas chairman Aryeh Deri’s threat of a Haredi “tax revolt,” and Degel HaTorah chairman Moshe Gafni’s recent instruction to local party representatives on regional councils across the country to halt all cooperation with the police over the arrest of yeshiva students.

“I saw this week that Ehud Barak, former prime minister and chief of staff, one of the leaders of the Kaplanists [the term used by many to refer to left-wing and anti-government activists], said that ‘if Netanyahu tries to sabotage the elections, there will be no choice but to expel him with sticks and stones,” Porush said. “Once war has been declared against the world of the Torah, everything that is permitted to them is permitted to us, and if necessary, even more than that.”

The remarks cames nearly two weeks after dozens of ultra-Orthodox extremists smashed windows and caused property damage while trying to break into Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Noam Sohlberg’s house during a riot.

The violence at Sohlberg’s house followed an incident in which a group of Haredi protesters broke into a police station compound in Beit Shemesh, rioting and clashing with officers just days earlier, and after members of the radical Jerusalem Faction in April broke into the home of the Military Police chief while his family was inside.

Last month, Porush appeared to call on police to refuse orders to arrest yeshiva students who disobey draft orders, stating that they should “think carefully” about their actions.

A 2025 investigation by the Times of Israel found that a telephone hotline linked to Porush, then a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, was counseling callers to “just ignore” summonses to the IDF’s recruitment bureau.

Under Israeli law, someone inciting others to evade service during wartime is liable to a prison term of 15 years.

Recent weeks have seen a significant uptick in ultra-Orthodox anti-conscription demonstrations.

The protests are escalating against the backdrop of a fierce national debate over the blanket exemptions from military service long afforded to Haredi men. A High Court ruling declared in 2024 that Haredi men must enlist, and the debate over enlistment has gained urgency amid the multi-front war Israel has fought since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack.

The Israel Defense Forces have warned repeatedly of an urgent manpower shortage amid the fighting. But Haredi leaders have continued to push for the exemptions to be enshrined in law, claiming that army service is a threat to their way of life and seeking to have the state view Torah study as service on par with military duty.

Over the past two years, the military has sent out tens of thousands of enlistment orders to members of the ultra-Orthodox community following the High Court ruling. Most have ignored the orders, leading to large numbers of young men being classified as evaders and being subject to arrest or other sanctions.