During the late 1980s and early 1990s, government minister Haim Ramon and Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri were a political pair of contradictions with significant power. Ramon, a blue-eyed Ashkenazi, was considered a rising star in the Labor Party. Deri, a native of Meknes, Morocco, was Shas' boy wonder, minister of interior at age 29. The two men hypnotized the press. The height of their collaboration was 1990's Foul Trick, which led to the collapse of the unity government headed by Likud Chairman Yitzhak Shamir.
Ramon later said that what he loved about Deri was his daring, his refusal to be obsequious toward the Ashkenazim “who run the country” and his ability to negotiate as an equal with Yitzhak Rabin, the ultimate sabra (Ashkenazi Israel native), as if he were the prime minister, and not the reverse.
