Benny Gantz on Gideon Sa'ar breaking away: Not the time for politics

The Knesset House Committee approved on Wednesday evening the split between Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party and MK Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope Party, which Sa’ar first announced during a speech on Tuesday evening.

“A very large public believes in the path of a nationalist-liberal statesmanlike right wing, in the spirit of the worldviews of [former prime ministers] Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir,” said New Hope MK Ze’ev Elkin. “Starting now, that public has an address in this Knesset, New Hope. A very large public feels that we are beginning to trod in place, we must invest in creative thinking to change how the war is conducted. We will fight for this change to happen.”

Elkin said that the name of the new party will be called “Hayamin Hamamlachti,” which translates roughly as the “Statesmanlike Right.” However, a spokesperson for Sa’ar said the name in English will continue to be New Hope until a formal translation is announced.

MK Pnina Tamano-Shata of National Unity said at the committee meeting that the split was “a divorce that was known in advance,” as the two factions ran in the election as separate entities in the same list, and never actually merged.

Gantz was unaware of Sa'ar's timing

National Unity head Gantz acknowledged in a press conference earlier on Wednesday that there were “challenges in the government’s conduct,” and that “real operational needs and correct priorities were being harmed as a result of political conduct,” but said that “now was not the time for politics.

“Now we must concentrate on the unifying, [on what’s] correct, and victory. When the war ends, we will go to an election. Anyone who runs will explain what he’s proposing, and what he did during this difficult time for the country,” Gantz said.

Gantz’s responses during the question-and-answer session that followed his statement were uncharacteristically curt. He said that he was not aware of Sa’ar’s plan to announce the secession on Tuesday evening, but that he did know about Sa’ar’s plans in general.

He added that “Sa’ar’s decision to go on his path is his decision. We will find ways to put out a list as good as ours and even bigger but of no less quality. We will do this the correct way,” Gantz said.

In his speech on Tuesday evening, Sa’ar explained that his decision to split from Gantz was due to what he claimed was the latter’s unwillingness to ramp up operations in Gaza and to achieve the war’s goal of completely eradicating Hamas.

“For a long time, my friends and I have not hidden our criticism of the campaign’s navigation by the reduced [war] cabinet,” Sa’ar said. He also demanded to become a member of the war cabinet himself.

Gantz said in response on Wednesday that “what isn’t broken doesn’t need fixing,” and there was no reason to bring Sa’ar into the war cabinet.

Sa’ar responded to Gantz shortly afterward in a post on X.

“I chose to separate from Gantz respectfully. Unfortunately, Gantz’s opposition to my joining the war cabinet is not candid and not for reasons for the good of the country.”

Sa’ar accused Gantz of opposing bringing on Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman for the same reason. He added that it was not accurate to say that everything was working, since “a very broad public feels and knows that there is a lot to change in the small cabinet’s navigation of the war.”

Sa’ar added that “at this stage, we should be after an operation in Rafah and finishing the job in the refugee camps in central Gaza.”