Forced By Court To Fire Minister Deri, Netanyahu To Nominate Him As Supreme Court Justice

“Aryeh, I see you on the court, bringing to bear a sensibility that those cloistered, wealthy ‘intellectuals’ could never muster.”

Jerusalem, January 31 – Israel’s highest judicial body ruled two weeks ago that an ally of the prime minister who served prison time for corruption may not serve in the capacity that the premier had named him, prompting the prime minister instead to designate him as a candidate for the next spot to open up on that judicial body.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu publicly assured Aryeh Deri today that as soon as a Supreme Court justice announces an impeding retirement, he will submit Deri’s name to the committee that selects and approves the replacement. Part of the new government’s platform involves an overhaul of the judicial system, in particular the method by which new justices ascend to the bench, and Netanyahu promised Deri that the selection process would undergo the much-touted reform before such time.

“I am sorry you had to experience this disappointment,” Netanyahu told Deri at meeting of current ministers and now, one former minister. “Please accept my commitment to making the judicial selection process more democratic and more responsive to the will of the people, as both something this country needs to extract itself from the tyranny of the self-selected elite, and compensation for you, who have devoted your entire adult life to public service, having served decades in the Knesset and three years in Ma’asiyahu Prison.”

Deri, of the Shas Party that represents traditional Jews of Mizrahi background and positions itself as fighting for the rights of its constituency against an Ashkenazi, secularized elite hostile to Jewish values, was dismissed from his position as Minister of both Health and the Interior. The plan called for him to assume the post of Finance Minister after two years. But the Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago forced Netanyahu to fire him. Both Netanyahu and Deri sought to portray the court’s decision as a political move and an illustration of exactly why the institution requires what critics warn will gut both the justice system and Israeli democracy as a whole.

“There can be no true justice if these unelected Lords in Black Robes arrogate the power of the people to themselves,” declaimed Netanyahu. “That is why we must pursue this important initiative. Aryeh, I see you on the court, bringing to bear a sensibility that those cloistered, wealthy ‘intellectuals’ could never muster.”

Deri thanked the prime minister for his kind words, but cautioned that he might not want such a position. “I’m a man of the people, not the bench,” he said, affecting  shy smile. “Maybe if I can make the robe look like the Sephardic Chief Rabbi’s…”

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