Minister without portfolio Gideon Sa'ar announced Tuesday that his party New Hope would no longer be part of the alliance with Benny Gantz's Blue and White, essentially dissolving the Knesset entity called State Party, which as part of the Center-Left bloc in the 2022 election.
Sa'ar, who joined the emergency government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu together with senior members of the State Party shortly after the Oct. 7 atrocities, said he would now seek to have his separate faction get its proper representation by being appointed to the special War Cabinet.
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Likud party sources told Israel Hayom it was unlikely that his announcement was coordinated with Netanyahu and that the issue of Sa'ar's appointment had not yet been examined. However, sources in the Likud believe that Netanyahu's response will be positive since Sa'ar is now providing a right-wing insurance certificate for the government during the war.
Sa'ar intends to re-establish New Hope as an independent party that will express, in his words, "the national-responsible worldview." Gantz responded on X with the words "Thank you and good luck."
"I respect my friends, the representatives of the State Party in the war cabinet," said Sa'ar, referring to Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot, "but unfortunately they do not express their the voice, positions, and emphases that I would have brought. Therefore, on your behalf, I express here our demand to join the War Cabinet and be part of the influence on policy," he noted. The comments were made during a party event with activists to conclude the election campaign for local authorities.
Sa'ar's dramatic move has been brewing with him for many long months. The dispute, he stressed to his partners just before the statement this evening, is on an ideological background.
The question now is whether Sa'ar sees an election in the offing. New Hope sources said Sa'ar's decision to break with Gantz was not coordinated with Likud and that he did not intend to join his former party, where he was a bitter rival to Netanyahu, but rather to build an alternative party that would lead the Right.
A source in the War Cabinet told Israel Hayom that adding another member to the forum would not be simple from a Coalition perspective, since there are similar requests for mother parties. "How will Sa'ar get in when Bezalel Smotrich remains outside?" one source asked rhetorically.
Sa'ar certainly hopes that his sharp break from Gantz and Eizenkot's arms will work in his favor in the memory of right-wing voters. After the war broke out, Sa'ar has tried to show more proximity to the Right, blurring his alliance with the anti-Netanyahu camp from the past year – during which he took an active part in the judicial reform protests – and has even made sure to differentiate himself from the Gantz.
Scattered signs over the weekend As a reminder, last Friday, an interview with Sa'ar was published in Israel Hayom, in which he criticized his party (and government) partners on how they conducted the campaign. "We must return to the drawing board and do things differently," the minister said.
In the interview, Sa'ar was asked if it was possible to declare the death of the State Party, and he replied: "I will not do that because I did not plan to do so. In the future, every party will have to make decisions about its future path. I cannot deny that in the current situation, where the central issue is political and security issues, there are gaps between us from time to time."
Regarding a possible return to the Likud, Sa'ar said the following:: "No. I left the Likud on December 8, 2020. Everything I said then is even more true today. New Hope is a national-statist right-wing party, expressing the values of the Likud as they were during the time of Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, and I will continue to lead it in this way."
The split will be approved tomorrow The Knesset Committee will convene tomorrow Wednesday, after the budget vote, to approve the split.
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