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Deri Knesset resignation rocks Shas; Lieberman takes aim in campaign launch
The turmoil within Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas continued to intensify yesterday as party leader Aryeh Deri resigned his Knesset seat with the parliamentary faction set to follow suit.
Deri had already seen his resignation as party leader rejected by the Shas religious leadership on Monday. Yesterday though, Deri handed his letter of resignation to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, which will take effect tomorrow night. Israel Radio news says that the rest of the party’s Knesset members have requested from the rabbinical Council of Torah Sages that they too resign. It is unclear at this stage whether Deri or the other MKs would still be candidates in the 17 March general election. However, it leaves huge uncertainty surrounding the party, which has often held the balance of power within coalition governments and held as many as 17 seats at the height of its power in 1999.
The uncertainty comes against the backdrop of a bitter feud between Deri and former-Shas leader Eli Yishai, who left Shas and established his own rival party two weeks ago. On Sunday, a video tape was leaked which shows the party’s revered spiritual guide Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who died last year, criticising and denigrating Deri. Although he denies any responsibility, the leaked tape is thought to have come from Yishai.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman launched Yisrael Beitenu’s campaign in the West Bank town of Ariel yesterday. Party officials have recently been the subject of a high-profile police corruption investigation. However, Lieberman said that unlike “ministers and the most senior MKs from other parties” nobody from his party had ever been convicted. Lieberman also criticised Prime Minister Netanyahu’s handling of Operation Protective Edge, saying “we shouldn’t have stopped it in the middle.” He took more general aim at Netanyahu’s “sit and do nothing” attitude, “the left, which stumbled and failed” and Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett’s “one state for two peoples” approach, which he said will “cause damage that cannot be repaired.”