While turning down defense portfolio, Sa’ar doesn’t rule out joining government in another role

By Sam Sokol 21 September 2024, 9:01 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

New Hope MK Gideon Sa'ar addresses an Israel Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv, September 3, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Despite announcing he will not take up the post of defense minister in light of the recent escalation in the north, New Hope chairman Gideon Sa’ar defends his qualifications to serve in the role.

In a lengthy statement, the hawkish opposition politician argues that he has a “deep familiarity with Israel’s national security challenges” based on his time serving in the security cabinet and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and that he remains “convinced of my ability to successfully fulfill the role of minister of defense, as I have excelled in all my ministerial roles.”

Asserting that his security positions have been vindicated by developments, Sa’ar says that Israel requires “an up-to-date security concept” and a rebuilding of the armed forces to allow it to meet future challenges and insists that a veteran of the security establishment, “contaminated with failed concepts” cannot be the person to enact the necessary changes to the military — without actually naming Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Citing the conclusions of the Winograd Commission, which probed the failure of the Second Lebanon War, Sa’ar says that it is advantageous to have an outsider “deep knowledge of political-security issues and experience as a member of the government” as defense minister.

Arguing that he has such experience, Sa’ar links a number of Israel’s historic security achievements to civilian defense ministers while contending that “the greatest military and strategic disasters in the history of the State of Israel occurred during the time of security ministers who were former IDF.”

These include “the October 7 massacre, the Yom Kippur War, the reckless unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon, [the] Oslo Accords. [All] events which resulted in the greatest bloodshed in Israel’s history,” he says.

Despite turning down what he says was Netanyahu’s offer to replace Gallant, Sa’ar doesn’t rule out joining the government in another capacity while vowing to continue promoting his security vision and expressing hope that the recent escalation in the north “will rise another level to the level of damage to Hezbollah’s strategic capabilities.”