Moshe Gafni, chairman of the Degel HaTorah faction, claimed this evening that Naftali Bennett approached him at the beginning of his return to political life and wanted to work with him in order to align with the haredi parties.
“When he realized that spot was already taken, he went to the other side," Gafni said in an interview with Kol Hai Radio.
In a surprising statement, Gafni did not rule out serving in a future government with Avigdor Liberman. “You don’t hear him so much anymore today. He’s no longer really attacking. He was with us in the municipal elections; he would ask me things. It’s a different situation. He’s not Yair Lapid," he said.
Gafni also addressed the future of the coalition and emphasized: “In the next elections, the question posed to the great Torah sages will be whether to continue on this path with the right wing."
Regarding the military draft law, he said: “The law itself has problems and is very difficult to implement. It needs to go before the leading Torah authorities, and they will decide."
When asked whether Degel HaTorah would run together with Agudat Yisrael, he replied: “Just today there was a meeting about it. We sat for several hours, and the leading Torah sages are the ones who will decide."
Gafni also commented on his feelings about Shas chairman Aryeh Deri: “There’s a division of labor between me and Deri - he gets the jobs, and I deal with the principled issues."
Associates of Deri quickly responded: “In recent years, Deri has made all the decisions on the important issues, while Gafni has disappeared from public activity. MKs Yaakov Asher and Uri Maklev, along with the homes of the leading Lithuanian Torah sages, work and coordinate directly with Deri. Gafni is not in the loop. He doesn’t exist. From the perspective of the Lithuanian rabbinic leadership, Gafni is not part of the system. As far as they are concerned, he belongs to history."