Ben Gvir and Deri trade blistering accusations over police treatment of Haredi protesters

A wave of ultra-Orthodox protests on Route 4 and in Bnei Brak has escalated into an open political war between Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The immediate trigger was footage of harsh police violence against Haredi demonstrators who blocked Route 4, which sharpened tensions over police enforcement of the protests.

Deri, seeing anger rise in the Haredi street, attacked Ben Gvir in the Shas party newspaper, HaDerekh. He called on him to “wake up” and said, “You are the minister responsible for the police, and you bear responsibility.” Shas also tried to tell young Haredi voters that Ben Gvir’s promises to end selective enforcement had failed “during his term, and precisely against black-hat protesters.”

Ben Gvir answered with an unusually harsh public letter, accusing Deri of years of inaction and political spin. He wrote, “Aryeh Deri, my friend, your public deserves serious answers from you about four years of non-action, it is not satisfied with spin. For four years you sat in the government, and you did not arrange the most important and basic thing for the Haredi sector, the status of yeshiva students.” He also accused Deri of managing ministries through appointees after a supposedly symbolic resignation, participating in cabinet meetings, coordinating election timing with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and behaving like “a player.”

Ben Gvir further said he regularly receives complaints from Sephardi public figures upset about Deri’s treatment of the chief Sephardi rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. He defended his own policy toward protests, saying the attorney general is seeking to remove him partly because of a policy document meant to stop discriminatory violence against Haredim and other minorities. The clash underscores that both parties are targeting the same “modern Haredi” electorate, and it is likely to intensify as the next election approaches.