Previewing political comeback, Sa’ar says he’ll return to Likud

Former interior minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday said he would return to the Likud party upon his reentry to political life.

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

He has since hinted he will make a comeback but has been hazy on the details.

“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 on Tuesday.

The former Likud minister would not commit to a time frame, telling the conference participants to “wait patiently.”

“Life outside of politics is much better, of greater quality and much calmer than political life,” he said. “I am very much enjoying what I’m doing and, of course, my family life.”

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 just 17 percent.

Sa’ar was a rising star within the 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.

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 vowed to run for prime minister, though he hasn’t committed to doing so from within the Likud.