On Tuesday, Gideon Sa’ar, the highest-ranked member of the Likud party after the prime minister, resigned from the Knesset in order to form a new political party that can challenge Netanyahu. By doing so, he both unsettles the shaky governing coalition and joins the long list of Netanyahu’s allies-turned-enemies. Haviv Rettig Gur explains the implications:
Netanyahu was already in trouble before Sa’ar’s . . . announcement that he was launching his own party. Naftali Bennett’s right-wing Yamina party has been polling at between 19 and 24 seats [out of 120] for several months now, and Bennett is widely believed to be seeking to oust Netanyahu from power. If the polls are even close to right—if Bennett can draw even fifteen seats on election day—Netanyahu will not have enough seats alone to [remain in office].
Nor will Netanyahu have any willing partners across the aisle. After his refusal to fulfill his rotation deal with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, it will be hard to find a political leader in the current Knesset willing to sign a similar agreement with him in the next one.
According to the poll, Sa’ar, among the most popular figures in the Likud rank and file until he challenged Netanyahu’s leadership last year, moves some four seats from pro-Netanyahu Likud to an anti-Netanyahu offshoot. And while he also weakens Yamina and [the centrist party] Yesh Atid, it is Netanyahu who cannot afford the drop.
Sa’ar is only the latest Likudnik to abandon the party over his disgust with its leader. Netanyahu is now surrounded by people with both personal and political grudges against him that they are willing to take to the ballot box—and that have already cost Netanyahu any clear path to a stable government over the past two years.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/saar-steps-out-of-netanyahus-shadow-and-will-likely-cost-him-the-premiership/