Housing Minister and ShlomEi Emunim chairman Meir Porush delivered a fiery speech Tuesday night at a gathering of hundreds of chassidishe gabbaim in Beit Shemesh, sharply criticizing the government’s handling of the draft law and accusing elements within Israel’s judicial establishment of seeking to “dismantle the Torah world.”

During the address, Porush revealed details of behind-the-scenes discussions surrounding efforts to regulate the legal status of bnei yeshiva and pass a draft law acceptable to the chareidi parties.

Porush, who has been one of the leading figures pushing for legislation protecting yeshiva students, claimed Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu repeatedly delayed advancing the law while offering various explanations for the hold-up.

“After the outbreak of the war, even those who until then agreed to an arrangement no longer really agreed,” Porush told the audience. “Maybe they agreed to promise, but not to actually regulate it. Although the truth is that we already had a problem even before that.”

Porush then disclosed details of a conversation he said took place with Netanyahu before the current government was formed.

“When I demanded that the law be passed before the government was established, Netanyahu told me he had four problematic MKs in Likud whom he needed to straighten out, and according to him, closer to the budget it would be easier for him to do so,” Porush recounted.

“Of course I did not accept that delay, but that is what he told me,” he added.

Porush referred to the ongoing tensions within the coalition over military draft legislation, as several lawmakers from Likud and the Religious Zionist Party have voiced opposition to various compromise proposals involving yeshiva students.

The ShlomEi Emunim leader also revisited controversial comments he made roughly a year after the government was formed, when progress on the legislation remained stalled.

“After about a year of his government and nothing moved with Netanyahu, I said in an interview: ‘If Netanyahu can’t do it? Then he should go home!’” Porush recalled.

The statement sparked backlash at the time, but Porush said subsequent events proved his concerns correct.

“They were angry at me, they said it was an attack on the prime minister — true,” Porush acknowledged. “But it turned out that the excuse remained the same excuse, and he still had no ability to pass the law regulating the status of bnei yeshiva.”

Porush also argued that the war had emboldened Israel’s legal system to intensify pressure on the chareidi tzibbur rather than ease tensions.

“The war changed nothing within the judicial system, which only exploited the situation to make things worse,” he declared. “If before that we were on a low flame, later on all the forces of evil from the ruling judicial elite arose and decided, in their own words, ‘to dismantle the Torah world.’”

He concluded with a broader accusation against the establishment, claiming it seeks to marginalize Jews connected to Torah and Yiddishkeit.

“They want to distance anyone who has even a Jewish spark from any connection to power,” Porush charged. “And their main way of doing that is through persecution against us.”

{Matzav.com}