The haredi Hamodia daily, associated with the Gerrer hasidic sect and the central faction of the Agudat Yisrael party, on Thursday morning published an editorial slamming those haredim who voted for MK Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party.
The Knesset's United Torah Judaism party is comprised of Agudat Yisrael and the Lithuanian-haredi Degel Hatorah.
In the article, the paper's staff wrote that before the elections, they warned against voting for Smotrich, and now those warnings have proven true: "They are proving with their actions how right those who warned [against them] were."
The paper questioned: "Is he a person who can, who is appropriate, and who is even willing, to represent haredi Jews, or more accurately, their values?"
"It was clarified that the haredi representatives are completely subordinate to the authority of the Council of Torah Sages, the Code of Jewish Law, and the values that Agudat Yisrael was founded on and acts to implement. They, and only they, have acted, act, and will with G-d's help act, to implement the instructions of Torah sages on issues crucial to the lives of haredi Jews in the Land of Israel, and they will not leave out anything which is told to them," Hamodia added.
"Already in his first test, Religious Zionism has shown with its actions how right those warning against it were. How much it is first and foremost 'Zionist,' in the extreme sense of the word, and only afterwards - if at all - 'Religious.'"