Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to bring back Shas leader Aryeh Deri into his cabinet despite firing him last month following The Israeli High Court's ruling that Deri could not serve due to his lengthy criminal record.
I had predicted that Bibi would flat out defy the court order and keep Deri in cabinet. The only explanation I can give is that Netanyahu had to go through the motions of abiding by the court's ruling before introducing new legislation bringing Deri back with the proviso that it would not be subject to judicial review.
But there appears to a wrinkle in Bibi's plan as several Likud MKs have threatened to block the bill restoring Deri to cabinet. Mind you, Likud's objections are not out of principle in preserving Israeli democracy. Likud wants Netanyahu to add two of its members to cabinet in exchange for bringing Deri back. I suspect that Bibi will go along with that plan.
Assuming this comes to pass then undoubtedly there will be another challenge to the High Court and with it the potential for a constitutional crisis which is exactly what Netanyahu and his coalition partners want with the objective of weakening Israeli democracy while embracing authoritarianism.
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