Knesset member Gideon Sa’ar of the opposition New Hope Party confirmed rumors on Saturday that he had been offered the defense portfolio, but said he would not take it due to escalation on the northern front.
He spoke after a week of speculation that he would replace incumbent Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“About a week ago, I agreed to take on the heaviest responsibility and under the most difficult conditions,” Sa’ar wrote in a lengthy Telegram post.
“However, in view of the recent developments on the northern border and their consequences, I have decided to inform the prime minister that in the current situation I am renouncing his offer for the position of minister of defense.”
Sa’ar said that his candidacy would place additional pressure on Gallant and would be used to incite against him.
“I do not want the minds of those who bear the burden of managing the campaign at this time to be distracted for an indefinite period of time by [my] candidacy,” Sa’ar wrote.
He devoted most of his post to insisting that he was suited for the position, despite lacking an extensive military background. (Sa’ar served as an NCO in the IDF’s Golani Brigade, and as a reservist until the age of 36.)
“I was and still am convinced of my ability to successfully fulfill the role of minister of defense, as I have excelled in all my ministerial roles,” he wrote.
He added that the most successful defense ministers Israel produced were civilians and not former generals. Examples he listed were former prime ministers David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin, and Moshe Arens and Shimon Peres.
On the flip side, Sa’ar said, “The greatest military and strategic disasters in the history of the State of Israel occurred during the time of former IDF army officers: The October 7 massacre, the Yom Kippur War, the reckless unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon, [the] Oslo Accords. Events that resulted in the greatest bloodshed in Israel’s history.”
Yair Lapid
Sa’ar also took to Twitter to defend his fitness for the role after opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party said in a speech on Sept. 19 at a conference hosted by Tzedek Centers, a community organizing group: “To try to replace a professional defense minister like Yoav Gallant … with a person who has no experience in the field, means that our politics has lost its sanity.”
After listing his security bona fides, Sa’ar went on to attack Lapid’s competence. “Everyone who heard what Lapid had and has to say in the last year during the hardest war in Israel’s history was amazed. Zero insights, zero depth, zero strategic understanding.”
Lapid, along with other opposition leaders, opposed Sa’ar joining the coalition as they considered Gallant an ally within the government and because Sa’ar, who would bring four Knesset seats into the coalition, would strengthen Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hold on office.
Following Oct. 7, Sa’ar’s party joined Netanyahu’s coalition “for the good of the country,” but it pulled out on March 25, 2024, over disagreements about the conduct of the war.
Until last week, Sa’ar appeared set to replace Gallant, whose dismissal appeared imminent due to his failure to see eye-to-eye with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the next steps in the conflict. Gallant reportedly opposed opening a second front with Hezbollah in favor of more time for a diplomatic solution. Gallant also expressed a willingness to leave the Philadelphi Corridor on Gaza’s border with Egypt as part of a hostages-for-ceasefire-and-terrorists-release agreement with Hamas.
Possibly influencing Netanyahu’s decision to keep Gallant was the latter’s recent change of tone, making the need to replace him less urgent.
“I have been talking all the time about escalation or agreement [a deal with Hezbollah], but there is no possibility of reaching a settlement,” he said at a closed security meeting on Sept. 16, reported Ynet.
“There is only one option—to go full force and use all our military power in order to bring the residents of the north home,” Gallant said.
The decision to replace Gallant was put on hold after an operation in which thousands of pagers exploded near-simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Sept. 17, killing dozens and wounding thousands of Hezbollah terrorists.
Another attack the next day, in which walkie-talkies used by the terrorists exploded, killed and injured still more members of the group.
Israel has not officially taken credit for the operations, but is universally thought to be behind them.
