Finance Minister and Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid addresses the General Assembly in Jerusalem, November 2013. (photo credit: Flash90)
Finance Minister Yair Lapid bid Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar farewell on Thursday, saying he “hopes [Sa’ar] will be back” to politics in the near future.
Lapid called the Likud minister a “friend.”
“Israeli politics needs good people [like Sa’ar]… and I wish him luck wherever he goes,” Lapid said at a Yesh Atid party meeting in the Knesset.
Sa’ar announced at a political gathering Wednesday that he was “taking a break” from his cabinet post to spend more time with his family. The news came as a shock to many, as the 47-year-old was seen as a rising star within Israeli politics and was placed No. 2 after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Likud party’s 2013 election list.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman expressed sentiments similar to that of Lapid on Wednesday, saying he was “saddened” to hear of his departure and that “his resignation was a loss to the government.”
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Minister of Interior Gideon Sa’ar holds a press conference announcing he would resign from both the cabinet and the Knesset after the Jewish holidays in order to take a break of politics, September 17, 2014. (Photo credit: Flash90)
Although the two issued the parting interior minister warm wishes, both men are set to gain handsomely from his departure: Since the Likud Knesset list is shared with Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party, Sa’ar’s replacement will come not from the Likud, but from Yisrael Beytenu. This will raise the latter’s Knesset showing to 13 seats, and shrink the Likud’s representation to 18 — one short of Yesh Atid at 19.
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