Ruling Likud party approves merger with Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope

The Likud Central Committee voted overwhelmingly to approve a merger with the coalition’s New Hope party on Wednesday evening, bringing its chairman, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, back into Likud five years after he quit over differences with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

New Hope holds four out of 120 seats in the Knesset while Likud has 32. Sa’ar will reportedly get a reserved spot on Likud’s electoral slate in the next election.

Addressing the Central Committee in Tel Aviv, Sa’ar declared that it was “good to return home.”

After the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, the opposition had to decide “whether they would exploit this terrible and historic event and the difficult war that followed it for political gain, or whether they would mobilize to strengthen the State of Israel at a fateful time,” he said, thanking God for the opportunity to “strengthen the Israeli government and the State of Israel during these critical moments.”

New Hope, which had been part of the National Unity alliance led by Benny Gantz, joined an emergency government days after October 7, and left the government in mid-2024 along with Gantz, only to then split from National Unity and rejoin the government in September 2024.

Following “a long series of conversations” with the prime minister, Sa’ar began to understand his strategy to “dismantle the Iranian axis” and decided to join the government, he continued, asserting that the day will come when “we will be able to proudly tell our grandchildren and great-grandchildren about the decisions that saved the State of Israel from the danger of destruction.”

Even before Sa’ar rejoined the government last year, Netanyahu had already started making overtures regarding the New Hope party chairman’s return to Likud, he recalled, framing the merger as the “unification and strengthening of the national camp” ahead of “a historic struggle against the broad international attempt to force Israel to establish a Palestinian state.”

תודה לחברי וחברות מרכז הליכוד שאמרו הערב את דברם באופן חד וברור! pic.twitter.com/scYThHswqc

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— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) August 13, 2025

“Who will be able to lead the people and the state in this campaign against the establishment of a Palestinian state other than the national camp, the Likud led by the prime minister?” he asked rhetorically. “Yair Lapid? Yair Golan?”

Dismissing media coverage recalling his bitter criticism of Netanyahu while he was in the opposition, Sa’ar said the two of them had “worked together shoulder to shoulder” and boasted that they were now “strengthening… the national camp” ahead of the next national election.

“I knew very well what the costs [of returning] would be and what all those who once praised and lauded me when it suited them would say in the [television] studios,” Sa’ar declared.

Netanyahu — who attended the vote to show support for Sa’ar — sounded a similar note, arguing that without Likud, Israel would be subject to relentless foreign propaganda and would end up with a left-wing government that would allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While the merger was supported by a majority of those present, it was opposed by Defense Minister Israel Katz, who views Sa’ar as a potential rival within the party, the Ynet news site reported. According to the report, a number of Sa’ar supporters in the committee said that they had received messages stating they were ineligible to vote, as well as follow-up messages describing the initial messages as a “mistake.”

Katz called Ynet’s report “a complete lie.”

Likud MK Tally Gotliv, meanwhile, railed against giving Sa’ar a guaranteed spot on the party list, stating that he did not deserve it after bolting and saying “terrible things about the prime minister.”

Video of her remarks showed attendees responding with boos and jeers while Sa’ar was met with hugs by attendees when he entered the hall.

A history of collaboration and conflict

Sa’ar signed an agreement to dissolve his right-wing New Hope faction into Likud in March, five years after he bolted the ruling faction following a failed leadership primary bid against the premier.

The announcement had come six months after Sa’ar reentered the government, and followed consistent polls showing his party would fail to clear the electoral threshold if it ran solo in the next election.

The Likud-New Hope agreement will require the scrapping of an August 2021 resolution barring members of New Hope from serving in Likud.

A second vote was slated to be held on Thursday to amend the Likud constitution to allow New Hope’s roughly 2,400 members to be registered as Likud members and provide Sa’ar with representation in party organs.

Under the agreement announced in March, Sa’ar and his party’s lawmakers will gain seats on the Likud secretariat, of which Likud Knesset members and ministers are statutory members. Additionally, 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 Hebrew media reports at the time, the agreement stipulates that 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 however 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 late 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. This is apparently in addition to Sa’ar himself getting a reserved spot.

The Ynet news site reported at the time that Sa’ar would 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.

Upon leaving Likud in 2020, Sa’ar said that Likud had become a “tool for the personal interests of the person in charge, including matters relating to his criminal trial,” and had fostered “a cult of personality” around Netanyahu.

During their time in the opposition, Sa’ar and his party’s MKs were harsh critics of the government’s handling of the war and other security and political issues.

Speaking with The Times of Israel in August 2024, New Hope MK Sharren Haskel, now the deputy foreign minister, insisted that Netanyahu’s administration was “one of the worst governments that we could have had in such a difficult, challenging time for our country.”

After Sa’ar signed his agreement with Likud in March, Channel 13 reported that Haskel was not expected to return to Likud. Haskel, who is currently in South Sudan on a diplomatic mission, did not immediately reply to an inquiry from The Times of Israel.