Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope signs agreement to rejoin Likud in next elections
Foreign minister, who left ruling party after failed 2019 leadership bid, thanks PM for ‘putting past behind us’; his deputy Ze’ev Elkin is also expected to run again with Likud
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has agreed to dissolve his right-wing New Hope faction into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, the two parties announced Thursday, five years after Sa’ar bolted the ruling faction following a failed leadership primary bid against the premier.
The announcement comes six months after Sa’ar reentered the government — having joined shortly following the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, before resigning in March — and follows consistent polls showing his party would fail to clear the electoral threshold if it ran solo in the next election.
In a post on X, Sa’ar said he and his party “never abandoned the right-wing worldview” while thanking Netanyahu for “putting the past behind us.”
Israeli politics “should have changed beyond recognition” following the Hamas onslaught, said Sa’ar in a jab at his former allies in the opposition. “Not everyone understood that.”
“Our differences, in the eyes of history, will look like insignificant nuances in the face of our enemies’ exterminatory intentions,” Sa’ar went on. “Our mission [is] to ensure Israel’s future for generations… that’s why I decided to return to what had been my home for most of my adult life and public career — the Likud movement.”
He ended with a 1981 quote from Likud’s first leader, then-prime minister Menachem Begin: “If there are a few holier-than-thou types turning up their noses, let their noses be turned up.”
The Likud-New Hope agreement must still be approved by Likud’s secretariat and central committee and will require the party to scrap an August 2021 resolution barring members of New Hope from serving in Likud, the two parties said.
The statement added that once approved, New Hope’s roughly 2,400 members will be registered as Likud members; Sa’ar and his party’s lawmakers will gain seats on the Likud secretariat, of which Likud Knesset members and ministers are statutory members; and Sa’ar will be entitled to choose 100 members of the Likud’s thousands-strong central committee, whose members are selected by the party’s local branches.
According to a copy of the agreement cited by Hebrew media outlets, Likud will also cover roughly NIS 1.5 million ($409,000) of New Hope’s debt and Sa’ar will no longer be able to vote how he chooses on coalition-backed legislation to overhaul the judicial system.
The Likud-New Hope statement said Sa’ar’s party’s dissolution would take effect in the next election, currently scheduled to take place in 2026. In that election, the statement said, Sa’ar will choose the candidate who gets the highest-ranked reserved spot on Likud’s electoral slate, placement on which is largely determined by the results of the party primaries.
Sa’ar’s reserved candidate will be placed no lower than 15th on the Likud slate, the agreement said. In the current Knesset, Sa’ar’s party has four seats, while Likud has 36.
The Ynet news site reported that Sa’ar will likely select Minister Ze’ev Elkin — a one-time Likud power player and Netanyahu confidant who left the party with Sa’ar in 2020 to found New Hope. It was unclear if Sa’ar himself would receive a reserved spot or would have to contend in the primaries.
New Hope’s number three, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, appears to have been left in the lurch by the agreement and was not expected to return to Likud, Channel 13 news reported, citing unnamed associates of Haskel’s.
Haskel, who left the Likud with Sa’ar and Elkin, will reportedly continue voting her conscience. According to the Channel 13 report, she has been offered an ambassadorship, but it was not clear where the posting was and whether she would accept it.
Ynet said Sa’ar had negotiated the agreement with Justice Minister Yariv Levin. Shortly after Sa’ar re-joined the government, the two negotiated a compromise on the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee.
Levin has sought to diminish the judiciary’s representation in the committee as part of the judicial overhaul, which Sa’ar had assailed while a member of the opposition.
Sa’ar also recently joined in the government’s demand to oust Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, whom he had appointed during his 18-month stint as justice minister in the previous government of diverse anti-Netanyahu factions.
Sa’ar, once a leading Likud minister, quit the party after a failed leadership bid in 2019 and vowed not to work with Netanyahu again in the future. At the time, Sa’ar accused Netanyahu of turning the Likud into a “personality cult” following corruption charges brought against the premier.
Ahead of the 2021 election, Sa’ar founded New Hope, which drew support from Likud heavyweights such as Elkin and Begin’s son Benny, a former minister. With Israel then in the throes of successive snap elections, Sa’ar presented himself as the only candidate for premier capable of forming a government. However, he won just six seats.
In the last election, in 2022, Sa’ar ran on a joint slate with former defense minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity. The alliance joined the government soon after the Gaza war was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Sa’ar quit the government in March after he was denied a spot on the war cabinet. Gantz, who was given a spot, later quit the government due to disagreements with Netanyahu over the direction of the war.
Sa’ar returned to government in September. In November, he was appointed foreign minister, replacing Israel Katz, who became defense minister after Netanyahu fired his predecessor Yoav Gallant.
