‘Our position regarding Netanyahu is as it was,’ says New Hope MK after National Unity split

The breakup of the National Unity faction was due to “difficulties and the gaps between us and Blue and White on security issues,” New Hope MK Sharren Haskel tells the Knesset Channel, adding that the party’s opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not changed.

Haskel says that the party was seeking “influence on military matters,” in order to bring about victory in Gaza.

In a surprise announcement, New Hope chairman Gideon Sa’ar and the three other MKs from his party broke off from partner Benny Gantz’s Blue and White yesterday, in order to reestablish themselves “as an independent faction, which will clearly express our national and civil worldview.”

Sa’ar is demanding a seat in the war cabinet.

Asked if her party hoped to garner support from other right-wing figures such as former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Haskel tells the Knesset Channel that “we very much hope and not a few right-wing, statesmanlike, liberal forces will return to us.”

After the war, there needs to be “a unity government which is as wide as possible because our state, our nation needs to go through a long process of rehabilitation, security rehabilitation, economic rehabilitation, and social rehabilitation,” she continues.

Asked if she and her fellow New Hope lawmakers were leaving National Unity to position Sa’ar as a good alternative to Netanyahu and whether they intended to rejoin Likud, Haskel responds that “we’re not going anywhere. Our position regarding Netanyahu is as it was — both today and in the future.”