Ex-Likud minister Sa’ar to announce political comeback

Former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar will reportedly announce his political comeback Monday evening at the party’s headquarters in the northern city of Acre.

Sa’ar, widely seen as a major potential challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from within the ranks of the Likud, resigned from the Knesset in October 2014, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

He has since hinted he would make a comeback to the Likud party but has been hazy on the details.

According to Channel 2, Sa’ar will officially make the announcement on Monday evening at 6:30 p.m. at a pre-Passover Likud event in the northern city.

New elections are not scheduled until November 2019, with the Likud primaries set for half a year earlier. But recent tension within the coalition has prompted rumors that elections, and primaries, will be held earlier than planned.

In February, Sa’ar confirmed he would return to the Likud, but would not commit to a time frame.

“I plan to return to public life and I will announce it in real time. When I return to political life, I will return to my party — the Likud party,” Sa’ar told the pro-settlement B’Sheva Jerusalem Conference.

In September, a number of outlets reported that Sa’ar had announced a comeback during a speech he gave at a yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Efrat. “The break is coming to an end, I will run in the next elections,” he was quoted as saying at the time.

Sa’ar denied making the statement: “No, I did not announce that I would run in the next elections. When there’ll be something to announce, I’ll announce it,” he wrote on Twitter.

Although absent from political life for over two years, Israeli opinion polls frequently include Sa’ar in their surveys on the candidates best suited for the premiership. In a January poll by Channel 2, which evaluated the most likely successor to Netanyahu should he resign over corruption allegations, Sa’ar tied with Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett at 10 percent, trailing behind Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid who received the most support with 17 percent.

Sa’ar was a rising star within Likud until he left his post as interior minister. A former education minister, he is regarded as more hawkish than Netanyahu and is considered to be emblematic of the party’s younger conservative bloc. When he left the government in 2014, he said he wanted to spend time with his family, having recently remarried. Sources within the party at the time said that his relationship with the prime minister was rocky.

Sa’ar, 47, started off as an assistant to the attorney general before being appointed by Netanyahu as cabinet secretary. He was first elected to the Knesset in 2003, and later served as the party chairman, deputy speaker of the Knesset, education minister and interior minister.

Also expected to challenge Netanyahu in the next elections was former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, also formerly of Likud, who resigned in May 2016 when Netanyahu gave his post to Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman in a coalition deal. Ya’alon has announced he will form his own party.

The announcement comes as a coalition crisis between Netanyahu with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon over the new public broadcaster — known as “Kan” — was resolved late last week with a deal that would see the news division separated from the corporation, its workers laid off, and most of the openings filled with former Israel Broadcasting Authority employees. Among those expected to be fired as part of the deal is Geula Even, Sa’ar’s wife, who signed on as an anchor.

But in another indication of coalition instability, Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett butted heads with Netanyahu Sunday, saying the prime minister failed to take advantage of the election of US President Donald Trump in order to change the narrative of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Likud party slammed Bennett, accusing him of being soft on Palestinians and giving in to left-wing groups.

“Bennett is the last one who should preach about withstanding pressure when he, as education minister, gave in entirely to pressure from the New Israel Fund. He left the curriculum with [Palestinian poet] Mahmoud Darwish, giving responsibility for setting the civics curriculum to an extreme leftist woman, and turning a blind eye to Palestinian incitement in schools in the Arab and East Jerusalem sector financed by the Education Ministry,” the statement said, referring to controversies during Bennett’s tenure as education minister.

Bennett refuted claims that his statements were intended solely to drum up support before his party’s primaries. “”I am very stubborn,” he said. “I state my mind before elections, during elections and after elections.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.