EXPOSED: Deri Accuses Kaplan Activists of Funding Anti-Draft Campaign in Chareidi Community

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri launched a sharp attack on Monday evening, accusing activists associated with the Kaplan protest movement of financing demonstrations against Israel’s draft law within the chareidi public, as part of what he described as a coordinated effort to destabilize the government and dismantle the right-wing bloc.

Deri’s remarks came in response to the release of recorded footage featuring a Kaplan activist, the chairwoman of the group Mothers on the Frontline, who is heard admitting: “We worked to create chaos and to break up the chareidi public from within, using the draft issue.”

Speaking following the revelation, Deri said: “We knew this already, but this is clear proof. All the big money behind the campaigns against the draft law comes from Kaplan. The same funding that pays for signs and ads against the so-called ‘draft evasion law’ is also paying for the pashkevilim in chareidi neighborhoods warning about the ‘danger of the draft’ and ‘those destroying the Torah world.’ The goal is one and the same — to bring down the government and the right-wing bloc.”

Deri further claimed that the campaign was aimed at sowing internal discord within the chareidi community. “The objective of the Kaplan activists and the people of Bennett is clear,” he said, referring to former prime minister Naftali Bennett. “They are trying to infiltrate us — admittedly at the margins — through individuals with familiar faces and names. They will yet be exposed. They go to the homes of leading rabbinic figures, secretly record them, play divide-and-conquer, and cause a terrible chilul Hashem.”

According to Deri, the dual campaign — public protests against the draft law alongside targeted messaging within chareidi neighborhoods — is designed to inflame tensions, undermine communal cohesion, and inject chaos into chareidi society in order to achieve broader political aims.