THE Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, and his colleagues were yesterday celebrating their escape from prosecution in the Bar-On corruption affair. But there was no rejoicing in the Shas party, the ultra Orthodox coalition faction whose leader, Mr Aryeh Deri, is the only person now facing charges over the scandal.
Mr Deri is already three and a half years into an extraordinarily complicated fraud and bribery trial. Now, the Israeli state prosecutors are planning to add to his troubles.
They say they intend to charge him with a whole host of other offences that effectively brand him as the prime instigator of the murky back room dealings that led, three months ago, to the under qualified Jerusalem lawyer, Mr Ronnie Bar On, briefly holding the prestigious post of Attorney General.
Mr Deri, the allegation runs, believed a tame Attorney General like Mr Bar-On could be relied upon to put an end to all his legal difficulties. The trouble is that, although the prosecuting authorities feel they have strong enough evidence to see Mr Deri convicted of extortion in pushing through Mr Bar-On's appointment, they don't have the same kind of incontrovertible evidence regarding those they suspect of having been the victims of that extortion Mr Netanyahu and his Minister of Justice, Mr Tsachi Hanegbi.
And while the prosecutors explain their decision in meticulous legalese in their summary report into the affair, the niceties of the rules of the evidence are being lost on Mr Deri's supporters, who claim that their man is being unjustly turned into the "fall guy".
Mr Deri (38), a highly intelligent and likeable politician, has managed to build up Shas within 3 years of its founding into Israel's third largest political party (after Labour and the Likud). It has 10 seats in the Knesset and enjoys the heartfelt support of Israel's Sephardi working classes, Jews of Middle Eastern origin who feel they have had a bad deal from the overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, middle class establishment that has ruled Israel for much of its 49 year modern history.
Late on Sunday night, after the Attorney General and state attorney had announced that charges over the Bar-On affair were to be brought only against Mr Deri, hundreds of furious Shas supporters congregated at the Jerusalem home of the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadyah Yosef. They called on Shas to leave the government and chanted slogans alleging anti Sephardi discrimination.
The rabbi then issued an incendiary statement of protest, accusing the Israeli police and legal establishment of harbouring "hatred for Sephardi Judaism," and of setting out deliberately "to harm the Shas party through blatant discrimination.
Mr Deri said he would not comment on the new charges against him until after the Passover festival, which began last night. His lawyer, though, spoke of "going to war" on behalf of his client. Quite what he has in mind remains to be seen, but the incandescent fury in Shas is probably taking some of the shine off Mr Netanyahu's celebrations. Without Shas's 10 Knesset members, after all, Mr Netanyahu has no Knesset majority.
The Prime Minister can probably afford to be less worried about the three petitions lodged with the Supreme Court yesterday, which seek to overturn the prosecutors decision not to charge Mr Netanyahu and Mr Hanegbi. The Attorney General, Mr Elyakim Rubinstein, who took the ultimate decision not to prosecute, is an experienced jurist who knew his ruling would have to stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny.
Shas apart, Mr Netanyahu's ruling coalition is now looking quite solid, with Mr Natan Sharansky's immigrant party officially dropping its threat to quit the government, having secured a promise from the Prime Minister to improve the decision making procedures in his administration and to establish a ministerial panel to handle future key appointments. Still, Mr Sharansky is apparently demanding that Mr Hanegbi be shifted from the Justice Ministry post, so a cabinet reshuffle may well now be in prospect.
Having cleared the first and biggest hurdle in escaping prosecution Mr Netanyahu can now afford to turn some of his attention away from the Bar-On affair and back towards the crisis in peacemaking with the Palestinians. Palestinian sources said yesterday they feared that Mr Netanyahu may now try to bolster right wing support by taking an even tougher line against them. The Palestinians are also anticipating a renewed US effort to revive direct negotiations.