Since the elections, one question has occupied many in the chareidi public and beyond: why did Shas take such a blow while United Torah Judaism grew stronger? The answer lies in the deep disappointment of the chareidi public with its representatives, and in one clear difference between the two parties.
Shas conducted itself in recent years like someone who makes deposits into someone else's account. It deposited its votes in the right-wing bloc, its support for the prime minister, and its backing for arrangements and benefits for the settlement enterprise. The assumption was simple: when the day comes, it will be able to withdraw from the account what its public needs. Budgets for the yeshiva world, regularisation of the status of bnei Torah, and protection of the laws important to chareidi society.
That day arrived, and the account turned out to be empty.
For years the chareidi public was promised a solution to the draft issue. In the end, no legislative arrangement was achieved, and the price reached every chareidi home: yeshivos whose budgets were damaged, families whose subsidies for their children's day-care centres were cancelled, and yeshiva bochurim who were arrested after being defined as deserters. In chareidi homes they asked again and again where the representatives were, and the feeling that the public was abandoned only deepened. At the same time, Shas continued to maintain its loyalty to the right-wing bloc.
And who stood in its way? Also Knesset members from within the national camp, among them Likud's Yuli Edelstein and Dan Illouz and Ohad Tal from Religious Zionism, who opposed the draft arrangement that the chareidi parties promoted. Bezalel Smotrich and Ofir Sofer, partners in the same government, advanced the agenda of Religious Zionism while the chareidi public was left without the arrangement it demanded.
The chareidi representation gave its vote to partners, supported their demands and helped advance their agenda. On the other hand, when the moment came to care for the chareidi public, it encountered resistance even from within the camp to which it remained loyal. The public saw this, and disappointment turned to anger.
This picture was illustrated this week precisely by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement of support for Aryeh Deri. Netanyahu praised Deri for his loyalty to the right-wing bloc, for his political partnership and for his contribution to Israel's security within the cabinet. Netanyahu fears that after the blow Deri and Shas suffered in the elections, they will re-examine their loyalty to him. Therefore he hurries to embrace Deri and preserve him at his side: after such a bear hug, it will be harder for Deri to detach from him.
But Netanyahu's statement looked like a ledger with only deposits. He listed in detail everything Deri gave him, and not a word was said about a single withdrawal for the benefit of the chareidi public. The promise of a solution to the draft issue, which was also signed in coalition agreements with him, remained on paper, while within his own party the lines were not straightened. Shas deposited, and Netanyahu collected.
And let's not misunderstand: Shas did quite a lot. It ensured the appointment of dayanim and rabbanim, advanced the kashrus law and the Kosher Floor law, which preserves for the chareidi public the ability to hold kosher phones with kosher numbers and without internet. These are important achievements. But they do not touch the chareidi voter in his daily life like the burning issues. What touches each and every one of the chareidi voters is the yeshiva bochur who fears being arrested, the yeshiva whose budget was cut off, and the mother who discovered that the subsidy for her children's day-care was cancelled. Precisely on these issues, the most critical ones, the public did not see results.
And the problem is not the absence of struggle, but the boundaries Shas set for itself in conducting it. It tried to conduct its struggles on only one political track, the track that passes through the Prime Minister's Office. It did not dare open itself to additional options that might have harmed it from a media and political perspective. It did not agree to sacrifice its branding as part of the right-wing bloc, even when this narrowed the ways in which it could fight for the chareidi public.
Let's be clear: In a right-wing government, the chareidi representation could not pass a draft law that would stand up to the test of the High Court (Bagatz). Any law that passes in a coalition leaning on the chareidi parties arrives at the court marked in advance as a political arrangement designed to preserve the government, and its fate is known in advance. The only possibility to pass a draft law that will hold up is in a government in which the left is also a partner. A law that passes there will bear the stamp of broad agreement, and it will be much harder for Bagatz to disqualify it.
Netanyahu knows this too. And therefore the question that troubled many in the chareidi public was not only whether a law was achieved, but why their representatives continued to seek the solution from him, in the place where it simply could not be found.
The public wanted to see that the first loyalty of the chareidi parties is given to it, and that they are willing to pay a political price to defend its interests. If the only way to a solution passes through cooperation with the left or with the Arab parties, it must be on the table. Not because it is a goal in itself, but because it is the only way that remains.
And why is cooperation with the left immediately considered selling out the state, but partnership with Netanyahu and with right-wing figures who opposed the draft arrangement is considered self-evident? Why is the chareidi representation expected to continue depositing and depositing, even when its partners refuse to allow it to withdraw even the basics?
The chareidi public knows how to accept failure with understanding, when it sees that its representatives fought with all their strength, confronted everyone who stood in their way and were willing to give up alliances and positions for its sake. What it is not willing to accept is representatives who were not willing to sacrifice the alliance with Netanyahu for the sake of the struggle.
And this is precisely the difference between Shas and United Torah Judaism. UTJ also did not succeed in achieving a draft law. But it made clear that it is not bound to the right-wing bloc, that it is not committed to Netanyahu and that it is willing to examine every path, even partnership with the left, in order to defend bnei Torah. The chareidi public did not punish it for the failure, but rewarded it for the willingness to fight. Shas, in contrast, remained attached to Netanyahu until the end, and the public made clear to it at the ballot box what it thinks of that.
The results prove that the problem was never the very failure to achieve the draft law. The problem was the feeling that preserving the bloc and the partnership with Netanyahu took precedence over the willingness to fight with all political means for the chareidi public.
Political loyalty can be an asset, but it must serve the public. The alliance with Netanyahu and with the right-wing bloc was meant to enable the chareidi representation to advance the needs of its voters. When those needs remain without an answer, the public is entitled to expect its representatives to re-examine the alliance itself as well.
Netanyahu wanted to praise Deri: he cared for the right-wing bloc, contributed in the cabinet and remained a loyal partner.
But the public that chose Shas is entitled to ask a simple question: who cared for us, and were you willing to pay any political price for it?
