Netanyahu dismisses key ally Aryeh Deri after court order

• PM Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses Aryeh Deri from all cabinet roles.
• Deri has a criminal record that includes convictions for tax infractions.
• His party calls the ruling “arbitrary and unusual”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed important ally Aryeh Deri from all cabinet roles on Sunday.

In accordance with an Israeli High Court judgement that it was unfair to nominate the Shas party leader to positions in government.

Due to his criminal convictions and the fact that he declared he would retire from public life in court the year before to being jailed for tax fraud, the court had stated that Deri’s appointment “cannot stand.”

The decision was reached “with a sad heart, with profound grief,” Netanyahu reportedly told Deri, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s office.

According to police estimates in Israeli media, Deri was fired the day after more than 100,000 people demonstrated in central Tel Aviv against Netanyahu’s administration and its proposed court reforms. Police reported that thousands more protesters demonstrated in Jerusalem and other Israeli towns.

Although there have been protests against Netanyahu’s administration for three weeks, this week saw the biggest attendance.

Yariv Levin, Netanyahu’s justice minister, unveiled a series of judicial reforms earlier this month that would give lawmakers more control over hiring judges and allow the parliament to overrule high court rulings.

Deri, who has a criminal record that includes convictions for tax infractions, must be fired, the supreme court said on Wednesday. Deri served a sentence with probation and declared he would resign from public office.

Deri’s Shas party, a major player in Netanyahu’s coalition and the party that won 11 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, in November, retaliated right once, labelling the court’s ruling “arbitrary and unusual.”

The Sephardi religious party said the court “today threw away the voices and votes of 400,000 voters of the Shas movement.”

“Today the court actually ruled that the elections are meaningless. The court’s decision is political and tainted,” the party said.

The High Court had been asked to rule on whether it was legally reasonable to appoint Deri to posts in Netanyahu’s cabinet despite his tax fraud conviction. Judges ruled that his appointment “cannot stand.”

“This is, among other things, due to his backlog of criminal convictions,” and his failure to retire from public life as he said he would do when being sentenced in the tax fraud case.

The rally that took place in Tel Aviv on Saturday was attended by opposition leaders including as former prime minister Yair Lapid and former defense minister Benny Gantz.

“What you see here today is a demonstration in favor of the state. People who love the country came to defend its democracy, its courts, the idea of a common life and a common good,” Lapid tweeted. “There are Israel lovers here who came to demonstrate for a democratic Jewish state according to the values of the Declaration of Independence. We will not give up until we win.”

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