MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) blew his top Thursday at the Knesset debate on the bill that would modify the law regulating conscription of haredi men to the IDF and national service. The bill was discussed in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. 

Gafni tore into Yesh Atid, which he said initiated the former law and now opposes making any changes in it. He called it “fascist.”

“For two years they hurt us at every opportunity,” he accused. “They do not seek to integrate the haredim into the army and state but to turn them secular. Yesh Atid will become secular before we become secular – and I already see some shoots sprouting.”

“There is no such thing in any democracy in the world,” he vowed. “Even the Russians did not do something like this to the Chechens. There is not a single aspect of a haredi family where they did not cause harm.”

The Knesset approved Monday, 60 to 45, an amendment to the Enlistment Law that postpones until 2023 the implementation of any criminal sanctions against haredi men who refuse to enlist to the IDF.