With elections on the horizon, Israel’s Netanyahu has a new challenger

Senior Likud member, Gideon Saar, submitted his resignation letter to Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin in Parliament on Wednesday in order to challenge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming elections. This would be the fourth contest in the past two years. 

An initial poll, conducted by Israel’s 103FM, found that Saar’s yet-to-be-named party would win 17 seats should elections take place now, finishing as Israel’s third largest party.

Saar, who served in the Israeli cabinet as education minister and then as interior minister from 2009 to 2014, announced in a speech on social media on Tuesday evening that he would be breaking away from the party with the aim to form a new one.

In his speech, widely televised by Israeli media, Saar said, “the Likud has turned out to be a tool that serves the personal interests of its leader, including his criminal trial.” “What Israel needs is unity and stability now, but Netanyahu can not provide either.”

As several parliament members are reportedly said to be keen to join Saar’s unnamed party, Netanyahu’s spokesperson claimed that Saar only quit after realising he would not be among the party's top ten list in recent polls. “He joins the long list of politicians who abandoned the Likud and then completely collapsed politically.”

Mtanes Shehadeh, leader of the Balad party of the Arab Joint List in the Israeli Knesset, criticised Saar severely and said that the move presents no solution to the problems in Israel. “Racist Saar attacks and splits from racist Netanyahu and we'll soon see the permanent and banal parade of generals on the way to another right-wing list offering the exact same thing. They present no solution for the hundreds of thousands of citizens in the existential and economic crisis, or the millions of Palestinians struggling under the occupation," he said.

Saar, 53, is known for his opposition to the two-state solution in Palestine, defining it an “unhelpful illusion". He was reported to say in a speech in New York in 2017, that “the establishment of a Palestinian state would flood the area with Syrian and Palestinian refugees and with radical elements." He also supports the annexation of the West Bank.

Can the move tip the scales? 

This is not the first time Saar has challenged Netanyahu. In 2019, he faced the Israeli Prime Minister in a contest for the Likud party's leadership. Netanyahu beat Saar with 72.5 percent of the votes. .

However, the recent poll suggests that opposition parties to Netanyahu’s leadership, including Yamina, Blue and White parties, could win 63 seats, while Netanyahu’s bloc - comprised of Ultra Orthodox religious parties, Shas and UTJ - would stay at 41 mandates, removing Israel’s longest serving prime minister from his post. 

Fourth elections in two years

The Israeli parliament approved a bill to dissolve itself in a preliminary vote last week with the support of alternate prime minister of the current coalition, Benny Gantz. The bill passed with 61 votes to 54. There will be discussions in the Knesset committee before another vote will be held on the bill. If it passes, the new elections will be set to take place 5 months hence, expected to be in spring 2021.

The coalition deal between the Blue and White leader, Benny Gantz, and Benjamin Netanyahu, was based on a power-sharing agreement in light of the coronavirus crisis. Both leaders agreed to rotate the premiership after 18 months. However, they recently clashed over the partnership because the Likud party agreed to pass a one-year budget instead of two.  

The passage of the two-year budget would have set in motion Gantz’s transition to power next year. Since that did not happen, Gantz was quick to accuse Netanyahu of putting his own interests before those of the country. 

“Netanyahu has wasted half a year of public trust. The reason we’re heading to elections is because he chose to take us there – when he put his own issues before the interests of the country,” he said.

Israeli political analysts see the move as a ploy by Netanyahu to hold on to power by exploiting a legal loophole, which enables him to keep his post should the Israeli government be dissolved over a budget impasse.

As the countdown for a fourth election in two years has begun, a recent poll  suggests that many Israelis have no faith in neither Netanyahu nor Gantz.