The haredi Hamodia newspaper on Wednesday morning rejected the attacks on the Agudat Yisrael faction, with which the paper is affiliated.
Agudat Yisrael, a hasidic faction, is one-half of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party. The other faction in the party is Lithuanian-haredi Degel Hatorah.
The attacks follow the submission of a proposal to pass Basic Law: Torah Study, which the paper says was submitted over ten days ago. Hamodia noted that Agudat Yisrael did not join the coalition in order to pass the judicial reform, but in order to advance a Draft Law.
"No one would think of submitting this bill the day after the vote on the reduction of the reasonableness standard and on what accompanied this vote," Hamodia wrote. "It was submitted already ten days ago, not in secret or in hiding but openly, as part of the coalition agreement which was signed publicly and also placed on the Knesset table."
"The noisy publication was initiated by a journalist who found in the Knesset database something that had been submitted ten days ago, and in the media they tried to claim that it was a 'result' of the reduction of the reasonability standard and the tumult climbed sky-high. This is not true. The timing is not ours."
Regarding the judicial reform itself, Hamodia wrote, "United Torah Judaism joined the coalition not in order to advance judicial reform but in order to regulate the status of the yeshiva students, whose Torah is their occupation."
"It (United Torah Judaism) is not leading the reform, it voted together with the coalition parties on the matter of the reform, as part of its coalition obligations.
"Torah-true Judaism does not seek battles. Not only is it not interested in adding oil to the flames which have taken hold of the public arena, it also expects and hopes that the rifts will heal."