“I don’t know where you are taking us,” hissed Shas Chairman and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a harsh conversation they recently conducted. Al-Monitor received this information, on condition of anonymity, from a high-placed Likud minister in whom Deri confided.
Deri, the key mediator between Netanyahu and Blue and White Chairman Benny Gantz, encouraged the sides to form a ‘"unity coronavirus government" as soon as possible. The second go-between was No. 2 in Blue and White, former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who in fact conducted the initial contacts with Deri. Ashkenazi was in favor of a unity government, even at the cost of dismantling Blue and White. He invested much effort and put out innumerable feelers to lower the levels of suspicion and anger that Gantz had accumulated toward Netanyahu in the wild, unruly March election campaign.
