Shas Leaders Threatening to Quit Likud Government over Deri Inquiry

The ongoing police investigation of Interior Minister Arye Deri and his associates for alleged malfeasance may change the political composition of the Likud-led coalition, if not its ideological configuration.

The leadership of Deri’s Orthodox Shas party is split over whether to stay in the coalition or quit. Party leaders and much of the rank and file are outraged by what they consider a fishing expedition by the Likud-run Police Ministry, motivated at least in part by bias against Shas’ Sephardic constituency.

The party accused the government Sunday of an “evil effort to destroy the movement, to erase it from the political map.”

That point of view is shared by three of the party’s five Knesset members: Communications Minister Raphael Pinhasi, Yair Levy and Arieh Gamliel.

There have been conflicting reports over where Shas’ spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, stands in the matter. Yosef, a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and head of Shas’ governing Council of Torah Sages, was reported by Ma’ariv to favor secession from the government.

But Deri, the focus of the police probe, said Monday that he and Yosef were trying to persuade other party members not to link the affair to Shas’ continued participation in the government.

Deri, at 31 Israel’s youngest Cabinet minister, has been counseling patience. He and Shas Knesset members Yosef Azran and Shlomo Dayan are urging party spokesmen to refrain from making threats.

Party sources say the Council of Torah Sages may meet soon to consider leaving the government.

A DEAL WITH AGUDAT YISRAEL

But even if Shas’ five Knesset members do pull out, the government is unlikely to collapse. Likud is reported to be on the verge of signing a coalition deal with another Orthodox party, Agudat Yisrael, which has a primarily Ashkenazic base and strong connections with the Lubavitch Hasidic movement.

Agudah remained outside Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s governing coalition when it was formed in June, ostensibly because of a prior agreement with the opposition Labor Party.

Likud sources say they are near an agreement that will satisfy Agudah demands, including further reduction of public transportation on the Sabbath and a ban on what the ultra-Orthodox consider “licentious advertising” in public places.

According to the sources, Likud has promised that an Agudah member would chair the Knesset Finance Committee and another would head the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, a portfolio currently held by Shamir himself.

As a result, some Shas members are urging their party to leave the coalition immediately, in order to bring down Shamir’s government before Agudah’s five Knesset members replace their own.

Without the thin margin of support from the Orthodox parties, Shamir’s government would become a minority regime. But the prime minister has received assurances from the left-wing opposition that it will not take advantage of a Shas defection to try to bring the government down.

Meanwhile, the Deri affair continues with the police amassing evidence and conducting exhaustive interrogations, but apparently unable so far to build a case that would stand up in court.

There are, in fact, three separate but related inquiries under way.

First, Deri and some of his associates are suspected of improperly funneling millions of dollars of Interior Ministry funds through local authorities to Shas-affiliated educational and social institutions around the country.

Second, Deri, several of his aides and various family members are being investigated for alleged personal illegalities involving the purchase or sale of apartments.

Finally, Deri and other key Shas members are suspected of hiring private investigators to illegally wiretap investigative reporter Mordechai Gilat, whose articles in the mass-circulation daily Yediot Achronot broke the Deri story in June. National Police Chief Ya’acov Terner and other persons are also believed to have been wiretapped.

On Tuesday, Knesset members Levy of Shas and Menachem Porush of Agudat Yisrael urged Prime Minister Shamir during a private meeting to speed the investigation of Shas ministers.

“Every inquiry must end sometime,” Porush was quoted as saying.”If the police had evidence, there would surely have been charges filed by now.”