The statement, which praised his “extraordinary skills and vast experience” and denounced the “grave personal injustice” of the court’s decision, said Mr Deri would continue to play “a central and significant role” without elaborating.
“We will act promptly and by every legal means available to us to right the injustice and serious damage done to the people’s democratic decision and sovereignty,” the statement added.
Mr Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, has been appointed to the powerful posts of interior minister and health minister in the government that was sworn in just under three weeks ago. The result of Israel’s fifth general election in less than four years, it is the most far-right and religiously conservative governing coalition in Israel’s history. Although Mr. Netanyahu promised a full four-year term of stable government, the first few weeks are proving to be turbulent.
“If Prime Minister Netanyahu disregards the court order and does not end Deri’s reign – although I can hardly imagine such a scenario – then we will find ourselves in a constitutional crisis such as we have never experienced before,” said Yohanan Plesner, President of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan research center in Jerusalem.
If Mr Netanyahu complies with the court’s decision and Deri’s term as minister ends, Mr Plesner said, “then we are entering a new political chapter in the short life of this new government, with a political complication that could perhaps serve as a destabilizing factor.”
Shas is the second-biggest party in the coalition led by Mr Netanyahu’s conservative Likud and a key partner for its survival, as it tensely makes every decision about the party and Mr Deri for Mr Netanyahu. The 11 seats won by Shas in November’s elections make up a crucial part of the governing majority of 64 in the 120-seat parliament.
Another Shas minister, Yaakov Margi, told Israeli public radio hours before the court ruling on Wednesday that “Netanyahu knows that if Deri is not in the government, there is no government.” He later softened the threat, saying, personally he would recommend Shas to resign from the government if Mr Deri could not become a minister.
