Israeli rabbi Arieh Deri, the founder of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party who is about to start a three-year prison sentence for corruption, said in interviews published Friday that Prime Minister Ehud Barak was giving up on the idea of Greater Israel.
Barak "is giving up on Eretz Israel at Camp David," Deri told Israeli television.
"I have always been both a man of peace and an advocate of Eretz Israel, ready to make concessions on the condition that they give us peace and security," he said. "But any agreement with the enemies must have consensus support in Israel, and that doesn't exist.
"I hope Camp David doesn't turn out in disaster," he said.
Deri said former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Barak's mentor who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist, would not have given up as much to the Palestinians.
Deri, who officially quit as Shas' head last year, said he was happy Shas left Barak's coalition on Sunday, saying the party "has only been humiliated."
He all but ruled out the possibility that the ultra-Orthodox party, which with 17 parliamentary deputies is Israel's third largest, would return to Barak's coalition.
Deri, convicted of taking bribes when he ran the interior ministry in the 1980s, will start a three-year prison term August 13 after the supreme court rejected his appeal.
The party's spiritual leadership, the Council of Torah Sages, has insisted on Deri's innocence and Shas leaders say Deri will continue to exert influence over the party from prison.
The Shas party centers on Jews of Sephardic, or Middle Eastern, origin, and views itself as a counter to the country's domination by Ashkenazi, or European, Jews. Political commentators say Deri's conviction has only boosted his popularity with Shas' 450,000 supporters.
The party is now headed by Eli Yishai, but most Shas members continue to show their devotion to Deri instead - OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
