By Mati Cohen the editor of The Israeli Palestinian Post

Aryeh Deri continues to distance himself from the extreme right, and the current manifestation of this is his order to Shas not to participate in the extreme right conference that was held last weekend in Jerusalem. A senior Shas source said, "Deri is now trying to separate himself from the extreme right, he is very afraid of what he has become attached to, the connection (that he made) to the right for his own interests, and this connection is very disturbing to him, so he is trying to escape (from it), for example in a demonstration (about He ordered not to participate), because it stuck with him that he became a complete partner with the extreme right."

Shas, as we assessed in the first days of the regime crisis, is the only political and public factor with the power to prevent the attempts to overthrow the regime in Israel, through the despicable legislation of the extreme right-wing fanatics; our assessment stands.

A second way to stop the regime's deterioration in Israel towards a dictatorship is the public dialogue at the President's House, the chances of its success are slim, except if the democratic side compromises and plunges Israel into the abyss, out of a mistake. The third way is political, and it is Netanyahu's relinquishment of his government, and of the lever of pressure on the court, a lever that he now holds in his hands. Netanyahu has kept Israel democratic in the past, but at the same time he has proven more than once that when choosing between the chance to save himself and an altruistic public mission, he tends to choose himself.

Aryeh Deri realized two main things during the crisis of legislation against democracy, especially in the last three months. One is that his party revolted against him, and he may consequently lose the iron grip he has on it. And the second thing is that the Israeli public also stands up to the Shas, and blames it for the results of the legal coup, and for bringing Israel to the brink of a civil war.

Regarding the internal situation in the Shas, in recent weeks we have exclusively reported on Deri's attempts to regain control of the Shas, below is a reminder of the main events in the party that appeared in our reports in the last three months:

1. Deri decided to nominate his brother Rabbi Yehuda Deri as the Shas candidate for the Chief Rabbi of Israel, and to skip over his former ally, the son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi David Yosef.
2. He canceled the Passover conference where he intended to announce the new rabbis for the Shas Torah Council, after Rabbi David Yosef announced that he would not participate in the conference.
3. He appointed new members to the Torah Council, including Porat Yosef yeshiva head Rabbi Shmuel Bezalel, whom he designated to be the head of the Torah Council. But Deri will not appoint Rabbi Bezalel before appointing his brother to the Shas candidate for chief rabbi of Israel, since the card of the Torah Council head is needed for him to manage the internal struggle in the party. Therefore, it is possible that in the end he will not be able to appoint Rabbi Bezalel. The question will be to what extent Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's associates are united, and politically skilled.
4. He appointed Rabbi Moshe Maya as temporary head of the Torah Council.

5. He does not want the other son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, as head of the Torah Council, because he wants to distance Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's house from all the centers of power in the Shas. The perception of power centers in the Shas by the Beit Rabbi Ovadia Yosef will lead to a leadership balance in the Shas and herald the end of the era of absolute control by Aryeh Deri in the party. However, Aryeh Deri does not rule out the possibility that in order to nominate his brother as the party's candidate for Chief Rabbi of Israel, he will have to separate the brothers Rabbi David Yosef and Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, so that they do not unite the entire house of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef against him. That's why Deri leaves the position of head of the Torah Council available as a bargaining chip in case he has to give it, even though he doesn't want to, to Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.
6. Deri distances himself from Netanyahu and the fanatics, and from everything they have the power to grant him, for example a Deri law to reinstate him as a minister in the government, or an observer seat in the cabinet, and he continues to distance himself from them even now, in order to rule again in his party, and to distance himself from the public's anger against him and against Shas, and perhaps also Legal measures that the Israeli public will want to take in the future against all the participants in the coup attempt that is taking place now, to the extent that criminal aspects are found in this attempt. In our estimation, Deri knows that if the public's anger in the Shas against him is substantial and visible, the power of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's house will increase, and he will be forced to share power In the party with the associates of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
7. Deri recently received a delegation of Rabbi David Yosef's disciples at his home, and they told him clearly that if he appointed his brother over their rabbi, the political struggle against him within Shas would intensify.

Rabbi David Yosef conveyed a message to Aryeh Deri, apparently through a delegation of his students who came to Deri's house, according to which if Deri nominates his brother Rabbi Yehuda Deri, the party's candidate for chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Yosef may run as an independent candidate for chief rabbi, against the Shas candidate. Under the aura of his father, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi David Yosef will probably have no difficulty in obtaining from the electorate the 20 signatures needed to place him as a candidate for the high office. The threat to run outside the party was voiced about ten years ago by Aryeh Deri towards Rabbi David Yosef's father, so that they would return him to the leadership of the party. Now the rabbi's son is taking a similar path, this time towards the theater; but Deri is not stopping for the time being and continues the process of appointing his brother.

A Shas source told us this week that the criticism of Aryeh Deri is also on the street, and that a large ultra-Orthodox public is angry at the focus on personal legislation and the legislation of the legal changes, instead of on things that are essential to the ultra-Orthodox public such as the cost of living, the amount of interest and religious laws, for example regarding conversion.

It should be said that the cultural unrest among the Shas electorate, regarding the sectarian discrimination suffered by the eastern communities since the dawn of Israel, is lower than among the Likud's eastern electorate, for example, and this is mainly thanks to the establishment of the national Shas in 1984, which developed out of the municipal Shas in Jerusalem , which allowed the Mizrahi Haredi communities to close the gap between themselves and Ashkenazi communities, by establishing their own Torah Talmuds, yeshivas, residential neighborhoods, employment and study opportunities, and more. In this sense, the public model that has characterized Israel since the dawn of the Jews' rise in the historical homeland, a model that in our eyes can be described as an enlightened democracy, which is within an Ashkenazi cultural tyranny, began to reach its end in the sense of the Shas communities in 1984 when Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Nissim Ze'ev, Ya'akov Cohen, Shlomo Dayan, who were later joined by Yitzhak Peretz, Aryeh Deri and his ally, the son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, David Yosef, formed the Eastern ultra-orthodox community whose political shell is Shas.

In the sense of "enlightened democracy which is given within a cultural tyranny" which in our estimation is the Israeli public shell, it should be added that this cultural tyranny is not the property of the courts only, but is the property of every private, public, political, entertainment, economic body, and so on, which has existed since the resurrection of the Jews in their land of Israel, under the Israeli sky, Including all the Israeli people who are under the same sky whether they are Mizrahi or Ashkenazi. Israel from top to bottom is plagued by this public model. Therefore, the desire to weaken the court, because of the cultural tyranny that has prevailed in Israel since its inception, as stated above, not only will not correct the Israeli public cultural deficiency, but it will also result in this cultural public deficiency continuing to prevail and even prosper within a political tyranny, and within a despicable dictatorship. And this is a state of affairs that will make it even more difficult to bring about the long-awaited correction, and may even eliminate the chance of it.