Sometimes I kind of feel bad for Aryeh Deri. He is probably somewhat misunderstood. Maybe he has repented, at least in part, for his crimes. He has served his time. He spent so many years out of politics, it seems almost unreasonable to just assume that he is the same guy with the same positions as he was in the early 90s. Even though he seems to be a master schemer, at the end of the day he did what Rav Ovadaya decided..  Why does he deserve such a bad rap?

Here is a good example. In one paper Deri is blamed for Abutbol's failure - he did not work hard enough for Abutbol, Abutbol was Eli Yishai's man, etc. In another paper they are blaming Deri for taking credit for Abutbol's win and saying they will appeal the court decision and asking where were you during the elections when you gave him almost no assistance. And in other media he actually gets credit for being behind Abutbol's [original] victory.

I don't know which of those scenarios is more accurate than the others, but I kind of feel bad for him that no matter what happens he gets the blame. I guess it comes with being head of a party that is right now in a bad place, but still he either gets blamed or gets credit taken away.

And then other things happen that make me think he probably deserves every ounce of strife they give him in Shas.  Stories like the revelation this past week of how Deri fired a senior Shas employee so that Deri could give his own son that guy's job (source: Mako news). It is stories like this that remind me of why he gets his bad rap, and why he deserves it. He treats Shas like it is his family business.