Gideon Sa’ar says he won’t take up offer to replace Defense Minister Gallant

MK Gideon Sa’ar announces he will not take up the post of defense minister, which he says for the first time was offered to him by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sa’ar, head of the New Hope party and a former Likud MK, says it is inappropriate that alongside the current defense minister, Yoav Gallant, there be a defense minister “on the shelf,” waiting to take over.

“I will always strengthen Israel,” he says, and will “never be among those who weaken it.”

Sa’ar says he had agreed to take the job “about a week ago,” but that he has changed his mind in light of the latest developments on the northern border.

Reports that Netanyahu was planning to boot Gallant — who he briefly fired in March 2023 and with whom he has a fraught relationship — and install Sa’ar have prompted a political and public outcry in recent days, with critics denouncing the prime minister for seeking to oust the defense minister in mid-war. Sa’ar, a bitter Netanyahu critic in recent years, has no substantial security expertise.

Sa’ar, in a very lengthy statement, does not rule out bringing his four-member New Hope party into the coalition.

Netanyahu is widely reported to be determined to oust Gallant, who has publicly distanced himself from Netanyahu’s handling of efforts to reach a hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza. Gallant is also refusing to advance draft legislation, demanded by the ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition and backed by Netanyahu, that would broadly maintain the exclusion of the ultra-Orthodox from military or national service. Without the support of the ultra-Orthodox parties, some of whose key figures have threatened to bolt the coalition over the issue, Netanyahu would lose his governing majority.

The prime minister has several potential replacements for Gallant within the existing coalition, including Likud party loyalists Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet security agency, and Foreign Minister Israel Katz.