The government is committing fraud by funding haredi (ultra-Orthodox) educational institutions, opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said Thursday. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other officials should be summoned for questioning, he said.
Lapid’s remarks followed a High Court of Justice hearing on petitions challenging the government’s transfer of more than NIS 1 billion in earmarked funds to haredi schools.
During the hearing, the state acknowledged that most of the funds had already been transferred before the Knesset Finance Committee voted to approve the decision in December.
'The government is systematically lying to the public'
“MKs voted on budget transfers long after the money had already been transferred,” Lapid said. “That is against the law. What was revealed today at the High Court is nothing short of an earthquake. The government is systematically deceiving the public.”
“We submitted an urgent request to the head of the investigations division to summon Finance Minister Smotrich and senior officials in his ministry for questioning,” he said.
“This is fraud, and fraud must be investigated,” Lapid said. “Any government accountant who approved these transfers needs to know that they will eventually end up in an interrogation room and will have to explain why they agreed to transfer the money.
“Yesh Atid will turn over every stone until we know: How long has this been going on? Who knew? Who approved it? Who bears criminal liability for the theft of state funds?”
Lapid and his party colleagues Vladimir Beliak, Moshe Tur-Paz, and Naor Shiri filed a petition for a High Court hearing regarding the budgetary reallocations that were approved in late December.
Lapid said he was not against haredi children, but basic requirements, such as core subjects being taught in school, were not being fulfilled.
Ahead of the hearing, Lapid told reporters: “We came here today because if someone steals money from you, you go to court. The Knesset stole NIS 1.09 billion from the citizens of Israel in the dead of night. The money was transferred to schools that do not teach the core curriculum, and that are subject to no oversight of any kind, in violation of the law.”
The money should be returned by the court “to Israel’s middle class, to the tax-paying citizens, the reservists, and not entrench yet another generation that our children will be forced to finance for another 50 years,” he said.
Last week, the High Court issued an interim order that froze the transfers, after the state informed the court that it would refrain from advancing the funds pending judicial review.
It was a sad day, Shiri said at the High Court.
“Instead of the Israeli government taking care of our children and our education staff, they are lying to the court, breaking the law, harming children, and creating a generation that will not know what the Israeli flag is, will not learn Hebrew, English, mathematics, or the story of the State of Israel,” he said.
“From books and education to a people of ignorance and folly,” Shiri said.
The High Court heard two related petitions. One of them challenged the legality of the budgetary transfers approved by the Knesset Finance Committee. The second petition called on the Education Ministry to explain why state funding is given to haredi educational institutions that do not comply with core curriculum requirements.
MK Naama Lazimi (The Democrats) said the government had decided on “a rotten fraud at the expense of the public and a betrayal of the future of the children in these frameworks.”
The Democrats Party chairman Yair Golan said: “While the public serving in the military is struggling with the high cost of living, while families in Israel are trying to recover after two years of war, the government reaches into our pockets and steals money from us.
“The method: budgets for cronies, jobs for friends – all at the expense of the working public. We are here to say loudly and clearly: State funds belong to the citizens. The coalition is acting like a mafia,” Golan said.
Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.