Mashas said today (Sunday), in an interview with Yaakov Hershkowitz at the annual conference of 'Israel Hayom', that his party's condition for any future coalition will be to regulate the status of Torah scholars alongside social issues.
In the conversation, Malchieli attacked the legal advisor to the government, Yoav Galant, and Yuli Edelstein - saying that "Edelstein lied and deceived us for an entire year.".
Malchieli commented on Shas' withdrawal from the government: "We withdrew from the government, we also withdrew from the committees. We did not join the opposition.".
According to him, Shas opposed the no-confidence motions of Yesh Atid, Merav Michaeli, and Mansour Abbas, because "we think we should not give them either the government or the power," but at the same time, Shas made it difficult for the government and the coalition to work.
Regarding the conscription law, Malchieli said that Shas is currently working to promote laws that will regulate the status of Torah students. "Not in the sense of conscription, but in the sense of arrests." According to him, "In the State of Israel, a state of the Jewish people, we need to recognize the value of Torah study that has preserved us for many, many years.".
Malchieli said that Shas is disappointed that it did not reach a settlement on the conscription law, but emphasized that "the condition for any formation of a bloc or coalition is the settlement of the status of Torah scholars, along with the flags of Shas - the social issue.".
When asked if the intention was to exempt the ultra-Orthodox sector from conscription, he replied: "The ultra-Orthodox factions have never submitted a bill to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from conscription. The proposal was to postpone and regulate by law the status of Torah students.".
Regarding the possibility of sitting in a government with Naftali Bennett or Gadi Eisenkot, Malchieli said: "Bennett is no longer relevant, it goes down from time to time." He even estimated that he "won't stay until the end of the race.".
Regarding Eisenkot, he said: "You see where he's going. There's no point in inciting part of the public to hate each other, all kinds of videos of transferring money as if we were enemies. A person who claims to be prime minister shouldn't hate in this way.".
When asked if he ruled out a yeshiva under Eisenkot, he replied: "A bloc is a means, not an end. We are members of a bloc that knows how to regulate social issues and the status of Torah students, and based on that, we create the bloc - not the other way around.".
Later, Malchieli was asked who was to blame for the fact that there is currently no conscription law - he replied: "Two bodies actively contributed to this." The first, he said, was the legal advisor to the government, who "resigned from her position as legal advisor and defected to the opposition benches." The second is "members from within the government.".
""Galant and Edelstein did not come from the Attorney General's Office, but from within the ranks of the Likud," he said. "Galant, as defense minister, demanded opposition support for the draft law - which was never such a demand. Edelstein lied and deceived us for an entire year. There are a variety of culprits here who caused the situation in which we find ourselves today without a law.".
Malchieli also referred to Netanyahu and said: "Netanyahu should have stood in front of a camera and said: I support Torah students, and he didn't do it. It took a long time.".
According to him, Netanyahu at one point said he would bring the law and he would pass it in the plenum, but Shas asked to bring a law with legal support. "When we wanted to and Netanyahu said he couldn't - we resigned from the government," he said.
