When the three Shas chiefs arrived at the prime minister’s office on Sunday afternoon [March 3], they already understood what awaited them. They had internalized the fact that their entire election strategy had failed and that their alliance with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which had seemed rock-solid to them, was smashed in a knock-out blow by the surprising new political alliance between Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and HaBayit HaYehudi leader Naftali Bennett.

Outgoing Ministers Eli Yishai, Ariel Attias and Aryeh Deri — who saw his dream of returning to the government crash into smithereens — still carried a last-minute hope-against-hope that Netanyahu would surprise them with a rabbit-out-of-a-hat solution that would leave them in the government. But instead of that, they heard him say that he has no choice, that Yair and Naftali do not allow him, that with great sorrow he is forced to dispense with them, that perhaps appropriate conditions would emerge later on.

The atmosphere at the meeting was tense and oppressive. At a certain stage, Netanyahu suggested to them, “Go to [Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich] Shelly, maybe you will succeed in convincing her to join, then we’ll have a government with you. I tried. I offered her a lot, but she is not willing.” Those present at the meeting already knew that this was nonsense: Deri had tried, over the last week, to steamroll the Labor Party chairwoman. In his attempts to convince her to join forces, Deri employed almost every possible argument. He told her that they shared an identical socio-economic worldview, that they would do great things together in the government, that they could avert the harm to underprivileged sectors that was being planned in the government budget. But Shelly Yachimovich remained adamant in her refusal.

As far as Shas is concerned, they have suffered no less than a resounding defeat. Sitting in the opposition is analogous to a curse, and has no value. Deri and Yishai can continue to threaten (meanwhile, in closed meetings) that they will take action in the opposition to bring down Netanyahu, but these statements are aimed at channeling their anger and shock to constructive avenues. It is clear even to them that they would rejoin the government at the first possible opportunity. The one term of office that they sat in the opposition became engraved in the party’s collective memory as a traumatic era to be avoided again at all costs. Yishai himself has not completely recovered from the blow he suffered when former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon forced him into the opposition in 2003. At the time, Yishai was forced to leave the interior ministry to Avraham Poraz, Tommy Lapid’s deputy in Shinui party. Now he is very likely to lose the interior ministry a second time, probably to Tommy’s son, Yair Lapid — how symbolic and cruel. For Yishai, his opposition days were days of budgetary drought and desolation. He promised himself that he would never return Shas to that position again, and assumed that his linkage with Netanyahu would grant him immunity.