NEWS ANALYSIS Mixing up politics and religion in wake of Shas leader conviction

JERUSALEM, March 23 (JTA) — The combustible mix of politics and religion has once again exploded in Israel in the wake of last week’s conviction on bribery charges of one of Israel’s most powerful political leaders. Aryeh Deri was convicted, among other things, of pocketing some $155,000 during a period of five years in the late 1980s, when he served in a variety of positions — including minister — at the Interior Ministry. Deri propelled the fervently Orthodox Shas Party into a major force in Israeli political life. With its predominantly Sephardi backing, the party has 10 seats in the outgoing Knesset — ranking third behind the Likud and Labor parties — and its supporters hope to clinch more in the May elections. Barely 15 years old, the party has managed to cross the political divide on peace-related issues, serving in the governing coalition of the current Likud government as well as in the previous Labor administration. But the religious divide is harder to bridge. And with the future of the party at stake, Shas leaders are seeking to capitalize on the religious component. Party officials are calling on their followers — many of whom believe that the court’s decision was part of an ongoing effort by the Ashkenazi establishment to subjugate the Sephardi cause — to reaffirm their faith in Deri. As part of this effort, the party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, declared within hours after the verdict was delivered in the Jerusalem District Court on March 17 that “Deri is innocent” under halachah, or Jewish religious law. Indeed, Shas has already reproduced this assertion on thousands of posters, placards and bumper stickers. But the assertion — precisely because it bases its disagreement with the court ruling on religious law — troubles many in Israeli society. As Shas leaders plan a series of “Support Aryeh Deri” meetings across the country and as the battle cry goes forth to win 18 seats in the next Knesset, the Deri verdict and its stormy aftermath threaten to ratchet up Israel’s religious- secular cultural war yet again. However one interprets Yosef’s reaction to the ruling, the outlook for cohesion and harmony in Israeli public life looks bleak. If “Deri is innocent” means that after a trial lasting four-and-a-half years the court was wrong in its determination of the facts, then this represents a wholesale expression of no-confidence in the Israeli judicial system. The judges heard dozens of witnesses, read tens of thousands of pages of court records — and concluded that not only was Deri guilty as charged, but that he had attempted a huge and grotesque perversion of the judicial process. Nevertheless, at least until the Supreme Court has ruled on an appeal, any criticism of the court’s factual findings is within the bounds of legitimacy in a democratic society. But the deeper meaning of “Deri is innocent” is not that it challenges the facts as determined by the court, but rather that it questions the legal and ethical inferences made by the court from those facts. That is what Yosef seems to have implied when he declared Deri’s innocence “under the halachah.” In exchange for the bribes, according to the conviction, Deri siphoned off state money for institutions linked to Shas. Under the Shas definition of halachah, Deri’s “innocence” means that an official or minister who lobbies for state funds to be channeled to a yeshiva and is rewarded by that yeshiva with a portion of those funds has committed no crime. Such an interpretation opens an unbridgeable chasm between the system of morality on which the state’s law is founded and the religious stance of a rapidly growing sector of Israeli society. Party members are already insisting that even if Deri is jailed — a court session to hear pleas before sentencing was slated for the end of the week, — he will continue to lead the party faithful from his cell. During a party meeting Monday night, Shas legislator Nissim Dahan observed that even after they are imprisoned, Hamas leaders continue to exercise unquestioned command and control from their jail cells. To be sure, Dahan made a point of distinguishing Shas and Hamas on all other points — but just the same, an Israeli leader calling the shots from his cell would undoubtedly introduce a new dimension to the nation’s political life. Despite the public claims of support for Deri, there are nagging doubts about the party’s future that are privately whispered even among the most diehard party activists. Will Deri’s conviction, and the statements made by party leaders in the wake of the decision, truly persuade Sephardim who have previously supported other parties to cast their votes for Shas? This is a crucial question, because without attracting new adherents, Shas cannot hope to increase its Knesset representation. In convicting Deri, the three-judge bench highlighted in its 917-page judgment an “edifice of deception” that Deri constructed during the nine years he was under police investigation and the subsequent trial in order to pressure and intimidate witnesses and to create an alternate account of how he received the money. The court dismissed that alternate account as a tissue of lies. Moreover, the court’s own detailed account of Deri’s attempts to thwart the judicial process drew a picture of a politician with Mafia-like power threatening the very essence of the rule of law. Some observers find it hard to believe that Israel’s Sephardi population — those who are not hard-core Shas adherents — would dismiss this kind of behavior. These analysts predict that Shas, far from benefitting from Deri’s blistering condemnation by the court, will lose ground in the May elections. Others say that even if Shas does succeed in reaping immediate electoral advantage from the wave of resentment among Sephardim that was triggered by the verdict, in the longer term there is bound to be a backlash that will, in time, weaken and possibly even destroy Shas. The only way that Shas can save itself, they say, is for Yosef to dump Deri and install another, cleaner politician as party leader. While this seems far-fetched now, it would be rash to discount the will to survive that underpins every political movement, including Shas.