Two kings cannot share one crown

Eli Yishai and Aryeh Deri are aware of their new situation, jointly at the helm of Shas. They both know because they both went to yeshivot as children and learned the same Torah lessons. "Two kings cannot share one crown," they were taught. But that is precisely what Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has forced upon them in efforts to preserve the party's unity ahead of the coming elections.

There is a story about the moon asking God defiantly why He created two "great lights," insisting that there cannot be two kings. God then punishes the moon, making it smaller than the sun.

In recent days, Yishai has played the role of the moon. He opposed reinstating Deri at the party's helm, but Yosef punished him. Yishai lost his status as the chairman of Shas. Deri got the campaign headquarters, the money and the political mechanism. Yishai's political future is doomed. The writing is on the wall in huge letters: "There cannot be two kings." The verdict will be implemented after the elections.

Ostensibly, Shas can reconcile two hostile camps within it. It is blessed with a talented mediator in the form of Housing Minister Ariel Atias. Such things have been known to work: Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres managed to cohabit within Labor despite their bitter rivalry. But the Shas situation is different. Shas is a fairly large party under the sole direction of a single rabbi. When Yosef retires, if not before, the Deri-Yishai battle will commence in full force.

The efforts to prevent Deri from taking over the party once again involved every kind of ploy and argument, except for the argument that a man convicted of bribery is not qualified to lead the public, even if the statute of limitations has expired. On Wednesday, the ones who ran with this argument were Eliad Shraga and a small group of his friends from the Movement for Quality Government in Israel. Their protest across from the rabbi's house was ignored. For Shas, actual social norms aren't seen as a tradable currency.

Nor are they taken seriously in the political arena either, it seems. Bills proposed by Labor Chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich and Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely and Kadima MK Meir Sheetrit to prevent convicted criminals from running for Knesset have all been blocked. The path for criminals to public office is wide open. Even Yishai didn't dare use this argument against Deri. It is simply not done in a party that has seen several of its leaders serve time behind bars.

Deri is the great hope of the Center-Left camp. While Yishai has two feet firmly planted in the right side of the political spectrum, Deri has tasted the forbidden fruit of Haim Ramon, Avigdor Lieberman and Ehud Olmert, as well as Martin Schlaff (a wealthy Austrian businessman who served as a benefactor to all these Israeli politicians). They hope that if Deri does become the indisputable leader of Shas, with 11 MKs at his disposal, he will take his party into a coalition without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That is a sweet fantasy. Even during the height of his power, Deri did not have the might to sway his party toward an alliance with the Labor party. He certainly doesn't have the power to do so ever since his injurious experience involving then-state prosecutor Dorit Beinisch getting into a fight with then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin over keeping Deri out of the government. He doesn't have the clout to bring about such a dramatic shift. The national agenda over the next four years will prove it.

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