With the unprecedented protection of the media, New Hope party members are being allowed to dig into their campaign promise not to join a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and drag the right-wing camp they claim to belong to down with them as a result.
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While Likud members are exchanging barbs with Yamina head Naftali Bennett, Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid is closing more and more deals coalition agreements with left-wing parties before he turns to the two right-wing parties meant to realize his goal of removing Netanyahu from power. Sa'ar, however, continues to look on from the sidelines, waiting for the right moment to toss out all the values in whose name he built his entire political career, and yet no one says a word.
The fervor to oust Netanyahu is such that they are willing to forgive Sa'ar anything. After all, he promised not to join a Netanyahu-led government. All Sa'ar is doing right now is keeping his word, they explain, absolving him of any responsibility or need to explain.
Sa'ar did indeed commit to not join a Netanyahu government, but unlike the left-wing camp, where Netanyahu is boycotted for being under indictment as well as ideological disputes on various subjects, such as the standing of the judicial system and issues of religion and state, Sa'ar's rationale was entirely different. When he established New Hope, Sa'ar spoke of Netanyahu's personal conduct that saw him "put himself above the state." In the days after he resigned from the Likud, the most blatant example he provided in all of his media was the fact that Netanyahu was dragging the State of Israel into repeated elections.
In a sharp speech announcing his resignation from Likud, Ze'ev Elkin, No.3 on Sa'ar's New Hope list, spoke of the shock he felt when he learned that Netanyahu was dragging the country into a third election for personal reasons, although he believed Netanyahu could have prevented them if he had wanted to.
"Mr. Prime Minister," he said. "I know you well, and I know you are watching us. You know the simple truth: Out of personal considerations, you took the country to unnecessary fourth elections, absurd elections, in two years."
Oh, how the tables have turned. It's one thing to behave this way when there's a possibility a government could be formed, but the way things look, Lapid will lose his mandate next week. When the possibility of forming a left-wing government is taken off the agenda, who, out of considerations of the ego or a desire for vengeance, will drag the country into another round of "absurd" elections? Sa'ar, Elkin, and all the other members of New Hope.
As it turns out, fifth elections may not be as zany as fourth elections. Or maybe personal considerations aren't that terrible after all. It all depends on who is taking them into consideration.
At a time when such fateful issues for the right-wing camp – regulating the role of the courts vis a vis the government and the Knesset, regulating settlements in Judea and Samaria, increasing international pressure to kick start diplomatic talks, efforts to persuade the US on the Iran nuclear deal, standing up to the ultra-liberal position that threatens to destroy traditional Jewish values – are at stake, Sa'ar and his fellow party members prefer to do anything, absolutely anything, including join a government with the most-leftist wings of the legislative branch that support an International Criminal Court investigation into Israel and drag the country into fifth elections – the very reason they attacked Netanyahu in the first place – as long as Netanyahu is swiftly removed from office. If there is some form of moral, political corruption we have yet to witness, the members of New Hope have come to teach us just how deep the abyss can get.
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