Gideon Sa’ar announced the dissolution of his partnership with Benny Gantz, ending Gantz’s National Unity political alliance. At the same time, Sa’ar demanded to join the war cabinet to influence policy.
MK Ze’ev Elkin addressed this and responded for the first time in a conversation with Udi Segal and Anat Davidov on 103FM, “It was never one party but two parties that contested in a unified list. We have not changed our positions. This is a public right-wing party with a center party. We built many agreements, but there were also differences of opinion. There was indeed an idea to form a joint democratic party, but Gantz decided he was uninterested. That is why it is not relevant; the dilemma was whether to continue the partnership of two different parties or not. There were more and more differences of opinion on ideological issues because the agenda has also changed.
“Ultimately, there is a large public here in the State of Israel whose positions are on the right and he is neither for [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] or [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir, but he is looking for a liberal Right. These are positions that, unfortunately, are not expressed when we are together. We had criticism regarding how the war was conducted in terms of pace and intensity; we opposed the withdrawal of the troops from their camps. We have been saying for two months that we need to start the operation in Rafah. They didn’t listen to us and look where we are now. If they had listened to us and done it two months ago, we would be in a different place today. There is no organized plan, so every time, Hamas can rehabilitate itself.”
The public opinion of Netanyahu
“These were issues that we talked about countless times. All of these things are decisions of the war cabinet; there are many decisions that we support, and there are things that we think should be done differently. Therefore, when we have criticism, it is not only criticism of Gantz, but it is first and foremost of Netanyahu. He is the prime minister. They think differently; that is their right, and we respect them. We will be able to cooperate with them in the future, but our positions are different. We were and remain right-wing people; we remain a right-wing party, and therefore, the Palestinian issue became the top of the agenda, unlike the last elections.
“Netanyahu is stalling, and a large part of the public on the Right is disappointed with him. We say to this public, you do not have to go back to Netanyahu – there is a discourse in the Knesset that has not existed until now, a liberal national right, a state right,” Elkin concluded.
