Former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who is also the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said the emerging US-Iran peace deal –which many Israelis see as a betrayal by US President Donald Trump — was a divine punishment for Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s efforts to crack down on Haredi draft evaders.

“Yeshiva students since the time of [Israel’s first prime minister David] Ben-Gurion have been exempted and engaged in Torah study. The Torah protects us,” asserted the former chief rabbi during his weekly Saturday evening lecture. “Why did [Trump] turn against us for no reason? Because of the decrees they issue against the students of Torah; that is why [he] turned against us.”

“Stop the arrests,” he demanded. “This woman, this wicked woman, is garbage.”

The ultra-Orthodox community has significantly ramped up both its actions and its rhetoric against efforts to detain draft evaders in recent weeks, with mass protests shutting down major roads throughout the country on more than one occasion, and lawmakers threatening to cease cooperation with the police.

The escalation was prompted by an Israel Police decision to begin detaining draft evaders they had previously allowed to go free, in line with an order from the High Court of Justice.

The IDF has sent out tens of thousands of enlistment orders to ultra-Orthodox men over the past two years, after the blanket exemptions enjoyed by the community were revoked by the High Court in 2024. Most have ignored the draft notices and are thus classified as draft evaders, subject to arrest or........

© The Times of Israel