Saar's stormy exit sinks Gantz's chances
Benny Gantz is feted in Washington and London as Israel’s prime-minister-in-waiting, the polls give his party an incredible 40 seats in the next Knesset, and he tops incumbent Binyamin Netanyahu by double digits. But a bird in the hand is worth more than a flock in the bush, and one of the two birds in his hand has now escaped.
Israeli politics took a dramatic turn last week with Gideon Saar, Benny Gantz’s number two, announcing the dissolution of their political alliance. This makes Saar the fourth key ally to ditch Gantz in four years, joining Yair Lapid, Gabi Ashkenazi, and Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon. But the timing might make this desertion the most damaging yet.
Saar is one of the savviest politicians in Israel. A former senior Likud figure and close ally of Netanyahu, Saar left the party with a door slam after the latter accused him of conspiring with then president Ruvi Rivlin to oust him. His new anti-Bibi center-right party, “New Hope,” was joined by fellow Likud defectors Zeev Elkin and Yifat Shasha-Biton, and made Netanyahu’s removal from power its primary objective—a goal accomplished, albeit fleetingly, with the formation of the Bennett-Lapid government.
After that government’s collapse, Saar united with Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot under the big tent of the National Unity Party. But ever since the party joined the coalition at the start of the war—a move Saar pushed by midday of October 7 — Saar’s relationship with Gantz cooled, even as his relationship with Netanyahu thawed.
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