Shas MK Moshe Arbel confirmed as health, interior minister after Deri ouster
Knesset votes 33-12 to approve appointment, as MK Uriel Buso expresses hope that party chair will return to ministerial roles
Shas lawmaker Moshe Arbel became the government’s newest minister on Wednesday, officially taking over the health and interior ministries after party leader Aryeh Deri was forced out of the posts in January.
The Knesset plenum voted 33-12 to confirm Arbel as minister, in a session overseen by fellow Shas MK Uriel Buso, who congratulated his colleague on the new role.
Buso also expressed hope that “Shas chair [Deri] will soon return to the government in order to fulfill these duties.”
On Monday, a letter signed by Rabbi Moshe Maya, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages, described Deri’s removal from his position as “scandalous,” and vowed that the council would continue to push for his reinstatement to the ministries.
But in the meantime, Arbel, 39, who served till Wednesday as deputy minister in the health and interior ministries, would be appointed minister, until Deri, “an emissary from God and from our sages,” is permitted to return, the letter read.
Deri was convicted of bribery during his first stint as interior minister in the late 1990s and sentenced to prison. In 2022, he was handed a suspended sentence after agreeing to a plea deal relating to tax offenses.
After the High Court found Deri’s twin appointments as health and interior minister “unreasonable in the extreme” given his recidivism, the coalition has been seeking legislation that would allow Netanyahu to reappoint him.
The court also ruled that the principle of estoppel barred Deri from ministerial office because in his January 2022 plea bargain, he gave the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court the impression he was quitting politics permanently in order to secure the deal.
Deri denies that he ever committed to permanently retiring from political life.
A bill to reappoint Deri by barring the courts from intervening in ministerial appointments — which passed its first reading in the Knesset — has been paused along with the rest of the Netanyahu government’s controversial judicial overhaul legislation.
Since Deri was sacked by a reluctant Netanyahu, his ministerial roles were filled on a temporary basis by Yoav Ben-Tzur in the Health Ministry and Michael Malkieli in the Interior Ministry.
However, temporary appointees can only fill the role for a maximum of three months, prompting Shas to appoint Arbel.
Ash Obel and Carrie Keller-Lynn contributed to this report.
