United Torah Judaism (UTJ) chairman MK Yitzhak Goldknopf has informed Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu that he has decided to give up his spot on the political-security cabinet, Channel 12 News correspondent Amit Segal reported.
Goldknopf made the decision after receiving instructions from the Gerrer Rebbe that he should not join the cabinet.
The decision to put a member of the haredi UTJ party in the political-security cabinet caused divisions without the party, with Degel HaTorah faction chairman MK Moshe Gafni being outspoken in his criticism of the UTJ's coalition agreement with the Likud.
"To make this decision alone, to take a spot on the political-security cabinet, is something that has never happened in the United Torah Judaism party since the establishment of the State," Gafni said last week in a briefing for haredi journalists which was reported by Channel 12 News reporter Yair Sherki. "I don't understand this at all. What happened all of a sudden that they signed an agreement without talking to us? Couldn't Goldknopf pick up a phone?"