The chairman of ultra-Orthodox Mizrahi Shas Party, Minister of the Interior Aryeh Deri, is an experienced, old political hand. He was first appointed minister at the age of 29 in 1988 and has since been a member of four Knessets and four governments. In the current government, all this experience has made him the great compromiser and mediator. “He is the glue that holds the coalition together,” one Likud minister said in a conversation with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

Deri is not particularly well-known in the international arena. His roles in government have always focused on internal affairs. As a member of the security Cabinet, he is considered level-headed and cautious. The heads of all the coalition parties, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, hold him in high regard.

Netanyahu and Deri have a long history of alliances and cooperation in election campaigns, coalition building and even during political conflicts. Netanyahu consults with Deri on numerous issues. He has even said that he does not make any decisions in Cabinet meetings before hearing what Deri has to say.

After the last election in 2015, Deri was one of the first people to sign a coalition agreement with Netanyahu. In all the ensuing coalition crises that the current government faced surrounding issues of religion and state, Deri was the main partner in finding solutions. In the conscription law crisis instigated by Knesset member Yaakov Litzman of Yahadut HaTorah, the coalition’s Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox partner in March 2018, Deri was one of the people who came up with the idea of postponing the issue until the Knesset’s summer session, thereby ending the crisis.