OVADIA YOSEF'S DAUGHTER CLARIFIES SHAS IS LEFT-WING

The daughter of the late Shas guru has not only confirmed all worries about the party's standings, she's even gone as far as blaming Jews for causing problems for Arabs:

Rabbanit Adina Bar-Shalom, Israel Prize winner and daughter of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual founder of the haredi Shas party, took part on Monday in a meeting in Tel Aviv held by the Geneva Initiative in which 30 political activists from different parties were featured.

In the meeting, Bar-Shalom spoke about peace deals, saying "I'm afraid of the ramifications that will be from a radical right government. We don't want a binational state. If we continue in the current situation - we'll reach that."

"A lot of blood was spilled here and every couple of years there's another war. The only alternative is two states to two peoples. As more time passes we'll only reach a worse (peace) deal," opined the rabbanit.

Ironically while Rabbi Yosef initially issued an opinion supporting the concept of giving up land for peace, after the 1993 Oslo Accords erupted in terrorist wars he famously reversed his position, realizing that such deals and concessions on the land of Israel only cause more bloodshed.

[...] Contrary to Bar-Shalom's words claiming Rabbi Yosef supported a peace deal, recordings have shown that it was Deri who was behind Shas's position on Oslo, and not Rabbi Yosef as Deri later claimed. Likewise the records show Rabbi Yosef called Yishai "my favorite," giving him permission to form his own party, and on the other hand condemned "evil" Deri for his corruption that had him jailed in 1999.

Speaking about Rabbi Yosef, Bar-Shalom continued, claiming "father loved Eli Yishai, but didn't love the right-wing path. Yishai joined with those who ascend the Temple Mount, something that father completely forbid. Those who ascend the Temple Mount cause bloodshed."

The rabbanit, who has been working in recent months to save Shas which has been slipping in polls, presented Arab citizens of Israel as suffering and essentially blamed Israeli Jews for causing Arab terrorism.

Until now, her own standings weren't clear. Now, they are. This woman is definitely unlike her father, who wasn't great but probably not as bad as she and Aryeh Deri are. If Yitzhak Herzog is elected prime minister, there's every chance Shas will join with him. So we must hope Yishai manages to reach a threshold and to get more votes than Shas does next week. This is clearly a very scary situation.