Shas chair Aryeh Deri turned to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu June 14 during an afternoon meeting of the right-wing opposition bloc and called Netanyahu “prime minister.” Deri immediately realized his mistake and mumbled, “This is tough.” It was less than 24 hours after the swearing-in of the new government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Now that Netanyahu is chairman of the opposition, Deri lost his position as minister of the interior, too.
The incident was almost touching. Netanyahu, who had been one of Israel’s strongest prime ministers, sat surrounded by the heads of the right-wing opposition faction: the ultra-Orthodox; the radical Religious Zionism party and members of the Likud, all of them members of the former coalition and government. With the state now being run by others, all of the former ministers, deputy ministers and committee heads had vacated their offices that morning.
