(JTA) — Secularist and religious members of Knesset offered opposing responses to the beating of a haredi Orthodox soldier in Jerusalem.

The soldier was beaten by a haredi mob in Jerusalem on Tuesday as an attack on his choosing to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Haredi Israelis are exempt from Israel’s mandatory draft, but a bill approved by Israel’s governing coalition would draft haredi youth in 2017. Efforts to draft haredi men have prompted a backlash in the haredi community.

On Wednesday, Avigdor Liberman, head of the secularist, hardline Yisrael Beiteinu party, said that the Knesset should consider new legislation “that provides an answer to this shocking thing,” according to the Times of Israel.

Likud Minister Silvan Shalom , according to the Times of Israel, said that he was “ shocked at this despicable and contemptible act.”

But haredi MK Aryeh Deri, head of the Sephardi Orthodox Shas Party, said that the attack was the expected result of a campaign against the haredi community.

“When you make ideological matters into social conflict, then don’t be surprised if we see the kind of social conflict that we have been trying to avoid for years,” Deri said, according to the Times of Israel.

He added, though, that “none of us support violence and all of us are against it.”