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Ultra-Orthodox Parties Not in Netanyahu’s Pocket

Politicians from the ultra-Orthodox Shas and Kadima center parties might be joining forces to create a bloc against Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu in advance of the elections next week, writes Akiva Eldar.  
Ultra-Orthodox Shas party campaign stickers depicting party leader Aryeh Deri (R) and spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (L), are seen on a car in Jerusalem January 17, 2013. A fixture in successive governments, Shas, the ultra-Orthodox party draws its support from the fast-growing community of religious Jews of Middle Eastern origin whose spiritual leader is the 92-year-old, Iraqi-born rabbi Ovadia Yosef. According to opinion polls, it will maintain its 11 seats in parliament. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (JERUSAL
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It seems at times that the 11th commandment in the 2013 model of Israeli politics is the ban barring religious parties from joining a government that is not led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, this is not the case. The ultra-Orthodox are not in Netanyahu’s pocket, certainly not now that the strong man in the ultra-Orthodox-oriental party Shas is once again Aryeh Deri, who returned to politics a couple of months ago after a 13-year hiatus; and all the more so when there are growing indications in recent days that Deri and co-founder and former member of Kadima Haim Ramon, his old buddy from way back, from the days of the “dirty trick,” have joined forces.

The term “dirty trick” was coined by the late former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1990 with reference to the attempt by Shimon Peres, then chairman of the Labor party, to form a narrow government headed by him and made up of the left-wing factions and the ultra-Orthodox parties in place of the second national unity government led by the then-prime minister, the late Yitzhak Shamir of Likud. It was the first time in the history of Israel that a government was toppled by a no-confidence vote. The two dominant figures pulling the strings behind the scene of the move then were Haim Ramon and Aryeh Deri.

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