The Shas movement issued a sharply worded statement Thursday evening blaming the Attorney General and the organizers of protests against the government for the recent wave of riots and violent demonstrations by haredi protesters over IDF enlistment and the arrest of yeshiva students who evade the draft.
Shas claimed that the arrests of yeshiva students during the election period were deliberately timed to weaken the right-wing political bloc by discouraging haredi voters from going to the polls.
“The premeditated and painful arrests of yeshiva students during this period, and the chaos we are now witnessing on the roads of Israel, are the handiwork of the Attorney General, with the aim of dismantling the right-wing bloc, alienating the haredi public, and causing some of them to abstain from voting," the movement said. "They are a blatant and unprecedented intervention by the judicial system and by elements in the military police in the election campaign."
“According to the information in our possession, behind the funding of the demonstrations are the people from the protests in Tel Aviv, to whom extreme elements have joined, leading violent and life-threatening demonstrations," the statement said. "These acts do not represent the Haredi public, cause a terrible desecration of the name, and cause serious damage to the struggle to regulate the status of Torah scholars. Do not let the Attorney General and the protest money undermine us. Do not let them win!"