By: Fern Sidman

Gideon Sa’ar, (a Likud MK between 2003 and 2014 who held cabinet posts of Education Minister and of Minister of the Interior, from 2009 to 2014) has now launched his bid to unseat prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as head of the ruling Likud party. In April 2019, Sa’ar was re-elected to the 21st Knesset.

On December 26th the Likud is scheduled to hold a primary vote for the new chairman of the party, who would then be placed in the top spot on the party list for the third Knesset election within a year which will take place on March 2nd, as was reported by World Israel News.

As Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu has been beset with corruption cases that have a questionable character and an indictment that was handed down by Israel’s attorney general. The prime minister is accused of trading legislative or regulatory favors in exchange for symbolic gifts or favorable media coverage, as was reported by the Guardian of the UK.

Because his position has been severely weakened due to the criminal indictment, these charges may serve to legally oust Netanyahu from office. Netanyahu denies any criminal activity on his part and has waged a cogent campaign against the media and law enforcement officials that he said have an agenda of forcing him from office.

Moreover, despite his numerous efforts, Netanyahu has been unable to cobble together a coalition government in the last two rounds of elections in Israel.

Sa’ar’s leadership in the Likud party marks the first serious internal challenge to Netanyahu. The Guardian of London reported that while Sa’ar still remains a political underdog to the embattled prime minister, he seems to be gaining traction ahead of a party vote on Thursday of next week.

Likud members have strongly supported their leader and joined in denouncing the alleged “coup” of the liberal elites against him, as was reported by the Guardian of the UK.

At an election rally on Monday, Sa’ar told the crowd that gathered that “a vote for Netanyahu is a vote for the next opposition leader.”

“If we don’t bring about a change, we are very close to a left-wing government,” Sa’ar warned, according to a report on the World Israel News web site.

Sa’ar praised Netanyahu as “one of the greatest leaders of the Likud and Israel and one of the most important prime ministers that we’ve had.”

However, as WIN reported, the former confidant of the prime minister told the audience that “there is no one in politics for whom I did more” but that, in return, Netanyahu “hurt me, hounded me, paid me back with pain for my good deeds, because I always did my best to focus on the good of the party and the good of the state.”

Disenchanted by the actions of the prime minister and for personal reasons, Sa’ar had taken a break from politics but returned ahead of last April’s Knesset election. He finished in one of the top spots in a Likud primary for the party list that proceeded the April national ballot, though Netanyahu was openly discouraging Likud party members from voting for the man who had become a nemesis to the prime minister, as was reported on the WIN web site.

Outside the hall where Monday night’s rally took place in Or Yehuda, in the greater Tel Aviv Area, a handful of demonstrators who had gathered to protest the Sa’ar challenge labeled his supporters as “traitors.”

On Tuesday, Sa’ar demanded that cameras be placed at polling stations to prevent even the impression of cheating. According to a Times of Israel report, this request, Sa’ar says is similar to Netanyahu’s own support for recording devices in the September general election.

Sa’ar argued that the use of cameras in the primary voting stations would help ensure “fair, clean and democratic elections, while protecting the right to a secret ballot,” as was reported by the Times of Israel. No filming would take place inside the voting booth, the appeal assured.

“In principle, the position of the prime minister is that cameras help to protect purity of the election process and ensure trust in the results of the ballot by the voting public, this without impacting the secrecy of the vote,” a letter on behalf of Netanyahu told Likud’s internal court early Tuesday evening, according to the TOI report.

Netanyahu noted that his support for cameras doesn’t detract from his opinion that the internal court cannot overturn Likud’s elections committee decision against using the devices, Channel 13 television in Israel reported.

TOI also reported on Tuesday that Sa’ar supporters said that thousands of voters had been purged from the party’s rolls ahead of the primary next week.

MK Yoav Kisch, who is running Sa’ar’s campaign, told Radio 103FM that 5,444 Likud members were missing from the party’s membership list, and would thus be prevented from voting in the December 26 face-off between Netanyahu and Sa’ar, as was reported by the Times of Israel.

The Guardian of the UK opined that Saar’s challenge to Netanyahu is a risky measure in a party that fiercely values loyalty and has had only four leaders in its 70-plus-year history. Netanyahu himself has denounced Saar as “subversive”. Earlier on Monday, Saar challenged Netanyahu to a policy debate in a video released on social media. “I am waiting for you, Mr Prime Minister, at any time and any place you choose,” he said.

Recent polls showed that with Saar as leader, Likud would make a more powerful bloc with its natural ultra-Orthodox and nationalist allies, according to the UK Guardian. Saar would also be in an easier position to create a national unity government with the centrist Blue and White party if, as expected, the upcoming March election produces a deadlock like the previous two rounds have, as was reported by the Guardian. Blue and White have ruled out serving with Netanyahu because of his indictment.

In an exclusive interview with the Jewish Voice, Oded Revivi, the Mayor of the Israeli city of Efrat for the last 11 years told this reporter that, “Both Netanyahu and Sa’ar have been relentlessly clamoring for my endorsement, but at this juncture I am not offering my endorsement to either.”

Referencing the work he has engaged in with both of these prominent Likud personalities in the last decade, Revivi recalled that his “association with both men resulted in highly beneficial measures for the people of Israel”.

When queried of his opinion of Sa’ar’s chances in prevailing in the December 26th vote and ultimately gaining the leadership role in the Likud party, Revivi replied with total candor and forthrightness. “The truth is, Sa’ar does not stand a chance is usurping Netanyahu from the role he has held for so very many years.”

Asked why he feels Sa’ar’s prospects in the department of political deftness remain dismal, Revivi said that Sa’ar “makes some excellent points” but that one cannot even begin to compare the two candidates. “One can only compare these two men as though one was a Mercedes and the other was a Sussita.” (A Sussita was a car that was manufactured in Israel from 1960 till 1966 in both a 2 door station wagon model and a pick-up version. It was made from fiberglass and people would often joke that a camel could eat the car).

“This translates into Netanyahu being the Mercedes and Sa’ar being the Sussita,” declared Revivi.

The Efrat mayor added, “I do understand that Sa’ar believes that the only way that Likud can retain power and actually prevail as the winning party in this upcoming unprecedented third election is with a new leader; a new face that will enter office with a clean slate in terms of political scandals and will be free of accusations of corruption. Sa’ar, however, does not possess Netanyahu’s vast political experience and prescience as well as his stellar leadership skills.”

Mayor Revivi also asserted that Sa’ar has been campaigning as “the more right wing” candidate and has been leveling accusations that Netanyahu is “not right wing enough.” He added that Sa’ar has promised prospective voters that he would not order a postponement on the demolition of homes of terrorists in Judea and Samaria, as he claims that Netanyahu has done.

“If Netanyahu ordered a postponement on demolishing the homes of terrorists, it is because he was under severe pressure,” said Mayor Revivi.

In an op-ed that he recently penned for Ha’Aretz, Mayor Revivi called on Netanyahu to temper his excessive pandering to his ultra-right wing constituency. “While it is fine to appeal to the political preferences of certain constituents on the far right, I reminded Netanyahu in my op-ed piece that his real political strength comes from his centrist voters and he really must address their concerns if he wants to stand a chance of being re-elected and leading our nation for the next several years, “ said Mayor Revivi.

Sa’ar worked as an aide to the Attorney General between 1995 and 1997, and then as an aide to the State Attorney until 1998. Sa’ar was appointed cabinet Secretary in 1999 and again from 2001–2 after Likud’s Ariel Sharon won a special election for Prime Minister. In the 2003 elections he won a seat in the Knesset on Likud’s list, and was appointed Likud Parliamentary Group Chairman as well as Chairman of the Coalition. He was opposed to Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan and attempted to pass a bill demanding a referendum on the subject.