Shas spokesman says voters want to replace Netanyahu, then walks back comments
‘Netanyahu may receive good marks for the conduct of the war, but the day after, most of the public wants to see a new… leadership,’ writes Asher Medina in party newspaper
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
A spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a longtime ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, argued over the weekend that Israelis are getting tired of the prime minister, before walking his comments back.
“Netanyahu may receive good marks for the conduct of the war, but on the day after, most of the public wants to see a new, young, determined, and above all groundbreaking leadership,” Asher Medina wrote in a political column published in the party’s official newspaper.
“No more of what we already know. It’s been enough for us,” he asserted, citing Netanyahu’s rapid fall in the polls following Hamas’s brutal assault on southern Israel on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Following the attack, trust in the government dropped to what the Israel Democracy Institute said was a 20-year low. According to a survey released by the Jerusalem-based think tank last week, more than two-thirds of Israelis believe that elections should be called as soon as the war against Hamas is concluded.
A Channel 12 poll released at the same time found that if elections were held that day, the parties in Netanyahu’s prewar coalition would muster just 44 Knesset seats and National Unity party leader Benny Gantz would have a smooth pathway to a governing coalition. The poll also found that the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties would retain their current 11 and seven seats, respectively.
Over the past decade, these parties have been staunch allies of Netanyahu. In return, they have enjoyed a continuing monopoly over several issues of domestic policy related to religion and state, as well as a cementing the exemption for ultra-Orthodox men from Israel’s mandatory military draft.
Prior to October 7, the ultra-Orthodox had launched a concerted effort to secure the passage of legislation enshrining this exemption in law, but those efforts were sidelined by the outbreak of hostilities and it is unclear how politically feasible such an initiative would be postwar.
The idea that “the Shas position is for replacing Netanyahu” is “a distorted and false presentation,” Medina said in a statement after his column gained the attention of the wider Israeli media.
“Most of the column dealt with Netanyahu’s strengths as a person who has no worthy alternative,” he stated. “In these difficult days, Shas is entirely occupied with assisting the war [effort] and the evacuees, supports the prime minister and the unity of the [coalition] and certainly is not occupied with political questions.”
Shas leader Aryeh Deri was initially appointed health and interior minister in the current government but lost those positions earlier this year when the High Court of Justice found the appointments “unreasonable in the extreme” due to his past criminal offenses. Part of the government’s legislative agenda prior to the war involved neutering the so-called “reasonableness clause” and reinstating Deri to his cabinet roles.
According to Hebrew-language media reports, Deri was heavily involved in bringing Gantz into the government, tempering the influence of the coalition’s far-right Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties.
JTA contributed to this report.
