MK Yitzhak Pindrus of the Degel Hatorah faction on Monday morning announced that despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements about bringing the Draft Law to a vote, the faction will vote this coming Wednesday in favor of dissolving the Knesset.
In an interview with Kol Hai Radio, Pindrus clarified that the decision was made in accordance with a clear directive from Lithuanian-haredi leader Rabbi Dov Lando. According to him, the move reflects a deep sense of disappointment with the Prime Minister’s conduct on the draft issue over the past several years.
"Time will tell whether Netanyahu is serious, but in the meantime we have had enough of commitments and stories," Pindrus said. "After three and a half years of promises, it is hard to walk around with the feeling that any minute now it is going to happen. Reality has proven, and Netanyahu himself has also said this, that he cannot or does not want to pass the law, or that he simply does not have a majority."
Pindrus also noted that Rabbi Lando understood that the law would not pass, and based on this assessment, the decision was made to move toward early elections.
According to him, until now, the role of the haredi representatives was to exhaust every possibility as long as the leading Torah scholars believed there was a solution on the horizon, but now the "stop" stage has arrived.
Wednesday’s vote will be a preliminary reading, offering a clear signal on the direction the Knesset is taking. If held at term, elections would take place later this year.
Asked about fears that votes could flow to Otzma Yehudit among young haredim with right-wing views, Pindrus dismissed the electoral consideration.
"The only justification for the party’s existence is the yeshiva world and the world of education, and both of these have now been critically harmed," he explained. "Without that, we have no political justification to be in the Knesset at all. For the people of Israel to survive, we need the Torah."
During the interview, he refused to commit to loyalty to the right-wing bloc after the elections, stressing that decisions depend on the results and on the question of how to best protect the yeshiva world.
"Sitting in the opposition is also an option - United Torah Judaism was in the opposition until 1977 and had great influence," he said. "In the current situation, in which the Torah world is being persecuted in an unprecedented manner, we will have to find creative solutions in partnership with the leading Torah scholars, whether that means support from outside or other political arrangements."