MK Menachem Eliezer Moses (United Torah Judaism) lambasted Israel Our Home party chief Avigdor Lieberman for his attack on the decision not to cut government funding for yeshivas. "I do not understand what he is complaining about,” MK Moses said. “The cut that was planned in yeshiva funding was disproportional to begin with, unegalitarian and unfair.”
"A cut of NIS 315 million in the yeshiva budget comprises one third of the entire budget for the yeshivas, which stands at NIS 975 million. That is – 30% of the budget, while the total Education Ministry budget of NIS 27 billion was only cut by one percent – NIS 24 million. The budgets of government ministries held by the Israel Our Home party were also cut by only one percent in the end,” he maintained.
"The Finance Committee [of the Knesset] also approved the cancellation of the cut in financing for yeshivas by a large majority, so I am certain that there are other motives behind the Foreign Minister's declaration – motives which he decided to wrap together with the yeshiva budget,” he hinted.
MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz of the National Union party also gave Lieberman a tongue-lashing. “Netanyahu's racist whisper in the ears of [Construction] Minister Atias not to allow any Jewish building in the capital of the Jewish people and in the lands of its ancestors is the reason that Lieberman should attack Netanyahu, but not by attacking the yeshivas – the spiritual world of the Jewish nation and the basis of its existence from time immemorial,” he said.