Finance Committee Chairman MK Hanoch Milwidsky strongly attacked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in a Wednesday speech in the Knesset plenum, accusing her of "sick hatred of haredim."
His sharp criticism followed what he described as her directive to the Tax Authority to freeze tax approvals for Torah institutions, contrary to a court decision in the pending petition.
In his remarks, he called on the head of the Tax Authority and on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich not to obey Baharav-Miara’s instructions.
"The Attorney General is preventing all nonprofits in Israel from receiving Section 46 status because of the pursuit and sick hatred she has for the haredi public," he said. "That is the only reason."
"She wants to formulate new guidelines, and until the new guidelines are issued, she is not allowing the Tax Authority to transfer even one nonprofit for approval - despite the fact that these nonprofits have already passed," Milwidsky said in the Knesset plenum.
"Therefore, I sent a letter on this matter today, and from here I also call on the head of the Tax Authority, and on the minister in charge of him, the Finance Minister, to issue an instruction to ignore this malicious and illegal directive by the Attorney General, and to transfer the batches of nonprofits to the Finance Committee so that they can receive approval under Section 46 as required.
"Head of the Tax Authority and Finance Minister, this is your duty, this is your legal duty. The directive you received from the Attorney General is an illegal directive given without authority, and therefore it must be ignored. Release the bottleneck for the nonprofits."