Prof. Dan Shechtman, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, spoke out over Shabbat against Israel’s haredi society.
At a culture event in Be’er Sheva, Shechtman said about Netanyahu’s promise to haredi members of the Knesset regarding budgets for educational institutions without general studies: “This is an obvious mistake. As a democracy we will deteriorate. Today it is still possible to form a coalition without the haredim, in the future it will be impossible. Now things can still be fixed, and I hope that the smart politicians sitting in Jerusalem will be able to overcome this problem. Maybe someone with common sense will appear there.”
“Do I look down on the haredim? I’m afraid of them,” he said. “If I were disdainful, I wouldn’t talk about them. I’m deathly afraid of the haredim. They’re taking our country, they’re anti-Zionist. I’m not generalizing them, they’ve come together in a coalition.”

He later addressed the country’s challenges: “The big challenge is demography. The State of Israel is going in a bad direction and for that matter I want to compare the State of Israel to the dark country Iran. Iran is going in the right direction. The rule of the Ayatollahs, this murderous rule, will pass from the world. Then Iran will be free, democratic I hope, and prosperous. Israel is going in a bad direction because of demography. We are a democracy. They have a high birth rate, and these are people who are against education , against work, – and sit and milk the State of Israel,” he added.