Riddle Arya Deri and his role in making fateful decisions for the country

“Bibi is needed by a strong Arya,” the Shas pre -election slogan on the eve of the 2020 elections read. Since then, the connection between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chairman Shas Arya Deri has only intensified. About these relationships tells Shilo Fried on the Ynet portal on August 15.

For more than 30 years, Netanyahu and Deri has been linking political partnership and personal acquaintance-starting since the 1980s, when Deri served as the minister in the government of Yitzhak Shamir, and Netanyahu was considered the ascending star Lida. “” “They say that there are no friends in politics, but there is a kind of friendship between my father and Arya Deri,” the prime minister Yair, in an interview with Kikar Ha-Shabat, said in July 2020, indicating their special relations.

Even after the ultra -organization shocked the current coalition and left all government positions, the proximity between Netanyahu and Deri was preserved – and, unusual and unprecedented, the latter continues to participate in the meetings of the office at which fateful decisions are made. Last week, Deri even interrupted his vacation in Switzerland to come to the office meeting, where he supported Netanyahu’s position on the need to seize the city of gas.

In fact, those who know, know: even leaving the government, Deri acted in coordination with Netanyahu, and as a result the coalition did not fall apart. Deri could not stay in the government after the rabbis of Degel Ho-Torah decided to get out of him, because he did not want to look “less ultra-organizational” compared to his Ashkenazi colleagues; But at the same time, he was not going to rock the coalition – especially during the war. So, for example, on the eve of an attack on Iran, he convinced his allies from Degel Ho-Tor and Agudat-Israel to refrain from voting for the dissolution of the Knesset.

At the same time, along with his impact on security matters, Deri remains the party leader, which every day is becoming more and more ultra -organizational and isolationist – and it was he who left the government against the backdrop of the requirements not to arrest the ultra -organization that devouring the Ultra Orls. He recently caused indignation by the fact that, despite his active part in making key decisions and meeting with the highest command of the IDF to plan operations, he warned the students of Yeshiv from drafting into the army.

► Punishes to the end of the war

Deri, who does not occupy a ministerial post after a decision of the Supreme Court on its unsuitability for membership in the government, nevertheless comes to some meetings of the Military-Political Cabinet, although it is not his permanent member. He constantly participates in a narrow forum on security issues, which Netanyahu periodically collects with representatives of law enforcement agencies and leading ministers. Deri also affects the position of ministers Shas at government meetings. For example, during the discussion of the previous hostage transaction, he demanded that the meeting continue on Saturday, and instruct the ministers to leave the note “for” if they leave the discussion.

According to informed sources, Deri is not just a participant in discussions of security issues. Those present there say that he is not just a “another voice” in a conversation, but the figure is more significant. One of the participants noted: “There is a order of speeches in the office – each expresses an opinion at the allotted time, and at the end the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Defense summarize. Deri always speaks to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he is not limited in time as the rest. When he says, there is always silence, attention and great respect. He sits there as one of the most senior people, and Netanieh gives his words a serious weight.”

For Shas, the meaning of the presence of Deri in the office is great. “Who knows what troubles were avoided thanks to his presence in the relevant forums and the fact that he is on guard, saving us from any enemy and attacker,” the chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Josef wrote about him in a letter published for the party event. One of the members of the coalition says: “He is a kind of restraining factor, and in some questions we can say that he pulls to the left“.

The recent joint statement of the CHAS parties and Yaaati Haora also indicates this course: “Despite the fact that we had to leave the government, we are completely devoted to our brothers and sisters held in the tunnels of Gaza, both alive and dead. Therefore, the factions will support any proposal for the release of hostages, which will be submitted for consideration of the government and the quest. It is more important than the ransom of prisoners.

Shas emphasizes that caring for hostages for Deri is the main topic. “He is all immersed in this,” says Michael Malcheli, a deputy of this party. “He begins the meetings of the fraction from the theme of the hostages and ends with them; his wife and daughter also talk only about this, at shabbal meals, on holidays, at family events – talks always about it. It does not let him go.”

On the other hand, Deri was sharply criticized that he had never provided sufficient pressure on the government to conclude a hostage deal, unlike Itamar Ben-Gvira and Botsalel Smoitsch, which actively push their transactions. The question arose: if for the sake of protecting the evading service you leave the government, then why not make the same for the sake of such fateful issues as the war in gas and the liberation of hostages?

Cabinet members say that for Deri every day when the war is going on is tormented, and he strives for its end. According to them, Deri considers himself a politician with the greatest experience in security matters in the entire coalition, which means that his value in the office is huge. It does not matter to him whether he sends or not ultra -organization to the army.

At the meeting of the office last week, where it was decided to capture the city of Gaza, Deri arrived from vacation in Switzerland – and when it was his turn to speak, he said: “I came to make sure that those present would not make a decision that we will no longer conclude transactions on hostages. This is unacceptable for me. This is the citizens who were kidnapped from their houses and should not be allowed to add up to make it possible. The impression is that we are no longer discussing their liberation. “

After that, he had a dispute with several ministers, during which he was accused of supporting Oslo’s agreements, and he, in turn, said that he had never supported the transfer of the territories of Hevron to the Palestinians.

Organization of partnership in the name of service-the unification of religious women-reservist, who advocated a wide call to the IDF-criticized: “How Deri can make military decisions, mobilize reservists and influence hundreds of thousands of employees and their families, and at the same time promise the ultra-organizational public to exempt from the burden of defense and remove the responsibility for the fate of the state? The religious-synical community, which knows that the Torah of Life is teaching and action, and which condemns evasion in the name of the Torah, is required to immediately withdraw Deri from the office and from among the participants in the decision in the field of security. “

Indeed, although it is important for Deri to listen to the position of the head of the General Staff as a whole, in practice, Shas finds it difficult to extend the hand of the tshala in the conditions of a serious deficiency of soldiers, despite the calls of Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir and his predecessor Herzi Khalevi. The party explains this by the fact that they want the law on the release of students of the head from the service, and only then there will be a discussion of the call for those who do not study specially adapted programs.

In fact, almost two years after the outbreak of war, ultra -natives continue to persist in their refusal to bear the burden of calling.

Mali Brozhelit, one of the leaders of the organization partnership in the name of the service, claims that the Torah obliges a call in the event of a sacred war, that while Deri does not support this, she opens against his membership in a narrow circle, making decisions on security issues.

“With the collapse of the concept of a small and smart army and an acute need for fighters for war on several fronts, it is expected that the studying the Torah will go in the forefront of the fighters. The approach of the ultra -native public, who reached the climax in the incomprehensible statement of Deri that“ there can be no talk, God forbid, about help during the war, is especially outrageous. The approach of the sector figures, contrary to the Torah, morality and civil liability, proves that the only way to call those who should have been the first to rush to save their brothers is the preservation of the existing law on military service with personal summons and effective sanctions. Negotiations and agreements are just an illusion. A man like Deri is not worthy to send other people’s sons to the front, and he must be immediately suspended from the military-political office. ”

On the other hand, the commentator Israel Cohen, known in the ultra-organizational sector, says: “Deri is a difficult story, and he is inflicted injustice due to a misunderstanding of the ultra-orthodox language. Everyone should prefer that Deri is in the office. He is one of those votes who care about hostages, his voice is important and may even solve the outcome. On one side with Tsahi Hanegby and the leading military, he plays the role of an adult.

“We believe that the one who teaches the Torah cannot be touched, and the one who does not study will go to serve when there are suitable programs for him,” Cohen concludes. “In the end, studying the Torah, is the special forces of the Israeli people, and we believe that they protect and protect the state of Israel, and it is necessary that they continue to study, even if it sounds different from the point of view.”