""There is also a third option""
The newspaper 'Hamodia', the newspaper of Gur's central faction in Agudat Israel, published an editorial this morning under the title "There is also a third option." The article discusses the conduct of the right-wing parties in the government, "following the continued harassment of Torah scholars whose Torah is their art." The article begins by stating: "The persecutors of the Haredi public on the right (not all of them, without generalizations, but unfortunately there are quite a few), assume that the Haredi public has no choice or option to go with the left-wing parties." The article deals with the thinking on the right that the Haredi have no alternative political options. "In their opinion, the left has gone so far, both in their political delusions and in their alienation from the holy places of Israel, that the Haredi do not have the option to go with them at all. And because of this, it is permissible for them, those on the right, to attack the Haredi public, to harm the apple of their eye that they are Torah scholars, to despise their worldview, and the Haredi will in any case have no other choice." According to the author of the article, the left will keep more promises to the ultra-Orthodox than the right. "It is certainly possible that there is some truth in their assessment. The Israeli left has indeed gone too far. It is true that when the left was in power, it kept its word more than its colleagues on the right; and it is true that if the left signs a coalition agreement such as the one the right signed regarding the draft law, it will stand behind the things without any deception, as those who are suddenly persecuting us are doing; but still, its general positions, and in particular on religious matters, are very extreme, and its extremism is very far-reaching and will make it difficult to ally with it. "However, there is a third possibility, which our persecutors are less likely to consider, and that is: the Haredi public, having been pushed into a corner in such a shameful way by those who were supposed to be its partners in Likud and religious Zionism, will come to the conclusion that it must deepen its separation, and not ally itself with either the right or the left, with the left - because of such shameful alienation from the holy things of Israel, alongside delusions about the future The Land of Israel; and with the right, because in times of trial too many of them do not keep their word, turn their backs and join the persecutors." The writer made a reservation: "No one believes that this option is a winning option, however, it is a default option that may be requested (of course only after our great rabbis and rabbis of the generation have instructed us to do so). After all, there is no point and no way for the Haredi public to lend a hand to those who seek to harm what is most precious and holy to them. There is no point in joining a coalition in which they cannot achieve what is most precious to them. It is possible in such a situation that the left and the right will join a joint coalition, perhaps days will come when a 'progressive' will live with a 'delusional messiah', but what does that matter; after all, already today there are some of them who join together to harm us. "We will repeat for the thousandth time: the Haredi parties did not seek to exempt the Haredi public from conscription, but only to anchor and legally regulate the issue of yeshiva students whose art is Torah. The coalition parties, all of them, have pledged to do so. In fact, they are evasive and deny it. Separately from this – and of course we are speaking according to their system – the army has done nothing and has shown no sign of being prepared to accept soldiers whose lifestyle is Haredi into its ranks. They have done nothing to guarantee that anyone who enters their gates as an Haredi will leave as he entered. The situation is heartbreaking, but that is not the issue being discussed now." The author of the article believes that the Haredi may not have to take part in the political arena. "Reality is closing in on the Haredi public politically. They have come to realize that they do not have allies who are capable of imposing authority on the members of their parties. They are encountering persecutors and slanderers whom they did not expect. They will have to calculate a future course, and perhaps prefer in advance not to participate in the game, and they will have to stand by it, even if suddenly a chorus of hypocrites that is persecuting him today, preaches to him about 'playing into the hands of the left.' And as stated on previous occasions: these things are not said in a threatening manner, they are simply a derivative of having no choice. "The Haredi public has a long-standing historical ideological disagreement with religious Zionism, the 'Mizrahi' as they were called in those days. This disagreement was and still exists, and everyone is aware of it. For many years, circumstances led to this, saying that despite the ideological disagreement, there is still more in common than what separates - and the 'common' prevails. Today, those who persecute us come and say, we have no interest in 'common', as long as what separates exists. It is therefore important that they and the entire world know: the Haredi public has no intention of giving up its worldview. On the contrary, it intends to protect it with all its might. There will be no force that can impose on this public a different worldview than the one handed down to it by its holy rabbis from generation to generation, from its fathers and mothers - who gave their lives for the existence of this way of life. We can talk, try to understand what is holy, what is precious, what is disturbing and what can perhaps be corrected. Forcing by force, slandering and defaming - will not help.".
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