In a hearing, MK Rabbi Yaakov Asher presented the position of UTJ on the most pressing and pertinent issues facing the Knesset which have the highest priority today amongst the party's members. These were headed by the securing of an arrangement of the status of yeshiva students once and for all. He also related to the question of the status of the High Court vis a vis the Knesset as the legislative body.
Rabbi Asher expressed support in the solidity of the government and the hope that it would complete its term. He praised the cooperation existing between the parties of the Coalition which collates many small groups and represents many factions and sectors under the umbrella unity of the government, which has managed to pass various annual budgets full of social compassion and concern, as totally opposed to the budgets allocated to the government offices in the previous Knesset under Treasury Minister Lapid.
Rabbi Asher warned against the dissolution of the government and blows effected by the High Court, where instead of fulfilling its job as a unifying factor for the nation in leading to a more equal social status of its population, it splits it asunder, and through its extreme and destructive world-view causes splintering of the nation and ill will between different public bodies, as he spelled out through various examples of the High Court dissenting with the government in the issue of illegal immigrants.
Rabbi Asher sharply attacked those parties which maintain radical political stands that foment disunity and pit various public factions one against the other, thus directly creating a public atmosphere leading to the dastardly program of one of the government departments to hire private investigators against yeshiva students.
"Our Torah, faith and tradition is what has stood to the merit of Jewry throughout the millennia of pogroms and exiles. It is disgraceful that fanatical parties establish their platform according to surveys, attempting to present yeshiva students who study Torah as parasites and as a ready source of political strife and national disunity," he said, adding that "precisely during these days when our enemies are trying in every which way to arm themselves against us and approach the border fences in the north and south, we must call to mind the posuk in Tehillim, `If Hashem does not guard a city, in vain does the watchman persevere.' I am hoping the High Court and political parties will look southward and northward and concentrate on unity rather than division."
