Aryeh Deri
Aryeh DeriYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

Shas chairman and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said on Sunday that he does not disqualify Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, but he does not see a scenario in which his party joins a government headed by Lapid.

"I do not think it is practical because we will form a national government headed by Netanyahu," Deri said in an interview on Reshet Bet radio. "It's convenient for Lapid not to attack us now. I never disqualified Lapid, it was him who disqualified me and now he is ignoring me."

In the interview, Deri also responded to Gideon Sa’ar's recent attacks against the haredim and said that "Gideon himself does not believe what he said. The evidence is that for many months he and his friends have tried to set up meetings and plan things. He understands that the haredim are his partners and that without them he has no government.”

“Sa’ar says things that are not true in an attempt to save the seats he still has by attacking the haredim. They are in the middle of a campaign, the day after the election they will try to embrace the haredim,” predicted Deri.

On the possibilities of forming a government after the election, the Shas chairman said, "From what I see, and I said this two months ago, the next Prime Minister will be Netanyahu with the haredim, the religious and Bennett. And when the government is formed, Sa’ar will come. I estimate that Gideon and Naftali have a chance of scratching a single-digit number of seats. I do not rule out the possibility that Shas will be a bigger party than them. We will bring 61 seats and more without Sa’ar and Liberman and form a government. In the second phase, the government will expand beyond that. I do not see the possibility of that not happening."