Shas chief claims Likud officials asked him to form government without Netanyahu

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has claimed officials in Likud and other parties attempted to persuade him take steps to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and prevent him from calling a new election earlier this year.

The Knesset was dissolved in May after Netanyahu failed to cobble together a coalition. This was due to Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman’s refusal to join the government. The new elections — the second round this year — will be held on September 17.

In a video aired by Channel 12 on Monday. Deri was seen telling a gathering of rabbis affiliated with his ultra-Orthodox Shas party that “We were under great pressure: ‘Why go to elections? Let’s get the president to pass [the task of forming a government] on to someone else — in Likud or from somewhere else.'”

He said “Senior people in Likud and other parties came to me and said ‘Why are you backing him unequivocally?’ They tried to check with me, to convince me: ‘Come on, no need to go all the way with it.'”

However, Deri stated, such a move was “unthinkable” because “the public wanted Netanyahu” and had supported him in the April’s Knesset election. It would be wrong to go against that just because Liberman “decided to replace” him, Deri said.

He couldn’t say to Netanyahu “You did your part now go home,” he added.

On Monday afternoon, Netanyahu released a video on Facebook calling on voters not to support Shas or other right-wing parties but instead to vote for Likud, which is running neck and neck against centrist opposition party Blue and White.

However, in his remarks to the rabbis, Deri said he had “no doubt that Shas with 12 mandates is much more important for Netanyahu and Likud than another seat or two for Likud.” (Shas won eight seats in April, and is currently polling at a similar level.)

Talk about a possible Likud coup against Netanyahu has been swirling for months. In May, a Likud source accused senior party member Gideon Sa’ar of seeking to topple Netanyahu when he criticized a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

In August, Netanyahu’s son Yair accused Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein of attempting to engineer a coup against his father in a now-deleted tweet. The younger Netanyahu, known for his combative tweets, made the accusation after Liberman mentioned Edelstein as a possible alternative to Netanyahu as prime minister.

Not long after, Yair Lapid, number two on the opposition Blue and White party list, told the Times of Israel that he believed Likud, whose MKs unanimously supported Netanyahu’s resort to new elections when coalition talks failed at the end of May, will not tolerate a recurrence and are ready to abandon their leader if he cannot deliver a clear-cut victory.

In early August, Netanyahu pushed Likud candidates to sign a pledge stating that they are united behind him and do not intend to replace him. Calling the pledge “humiliating,” Lapid commented that “nobody in his right mind will say anything before the elections. But the minute this election is over, and especially if there’s not a clear winner, then they’re going to get even with him.”

Liberman, too, has claimed many in Likud are already expecting Netanyahu to once again fail to form a coalition after the coming election, and are looking at the possibility of replacing him.