Gideon Sa’ar: PM Netanyahu’s Worst Political Nightmare

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30 Shevat 5779

5 February 2019

The News on the Israeli Street

Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .

In Judea and Samaria:

Two Palestinian terrorists on motorcycles attacked soldiers with IEDs at the Jamaleh Checkpoint outside of Jenin yesterday. One terrorist was shot and killed; the other was critically wounded. Before he left for the attack, the dead terrorist put this post on Facebook:

It reads that he has faith in Allah that his mission will be successful.

By virtue of his subsequent funeral in the streets of Jenin, we can see that fortunately the terrorist’s faith was misplaced:

In the streets of Jenin yesterday evening.

After the funeral, the PLO accused IDF soldiers who shot the two terrorists of carrying out a “massacre.”

Palestinian terrorists attacking with Molotovs and “rocks” assaulted Israelis on the Trans-Judea highway, at Al-Fawwar, Hevron, Al Aruv, at Ma’ale Amos and other places in Gush Etzion, east of the Maccabim checkpoint, near the Tapuach Junction, and at Hawara among other places.

On the Gaza Border:

In diminished numbers (about 2,500 as opposed to the weekend’s 15,000), Hamas and Islamic Jihad foot soldiers, burned tires, launched balloons, and attacked the border fence with grenades, Molotovs, and IEDs.

This morning, Islamic Jihad issued a statement declaring that its snipers “will turn the lives of IDF soldiers into hell.”

TODAY’S BLOG:

Gideon Sa’ar: PM Netanyahu’s Worst Political Nightmare

Gideon Sa’ar

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All of the news in Israel at this hour is fixated on the Likud Party primaries.

Each political party in Israel holds a primary several months before an upcoming election. In that primary, candidates within the party vie for a spot on the party’s election list. The higher the position on the list, the more likely the candidate will be in the Knesset. It is that list–not individuals–that voters will vote for (or not) on election day.

In the case of the Netanyahu’s Likud party, there is a reasonable expectation that the first 30 on the list will be in the next Knesset because polls show Likud winning 30 mandates this coming April. However, the Likud situation is complicated by the fact that Netanyahu has “armored” at least 4 spots–meaning that he can fill those spots with whomever he wants no matter how the primary turns out. Obviously one of the spots will be for himself.

Basically today, 142 Likud party members are vying for about 26 spots on the Likud Election List for April. Although 120,000 Israelis are officially registered as Likud Party members, it would appear as of this hour that only about 33% of them are voting.

What has evolved during the day is an all-out fight on the part of Netanyahu and his supporters to keep Gideon Sa’ar from getting one of those 26 spots–and in the event that he does land a spot, that he not receive one of the top 5 spots.

Apparently, early in the day, the Prime Minister’s Office sent a directive to numerous Likud party voting places telling them to remove Sa’ar’s name from the list of 142. That directive was not followed by most primary officials.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s operatives have been frantically running around all morning and afternoon spreading conspiracy theories that Sa’ar and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz have made a deal to thwart Netanyahu, and that Sa’ar and Israel President Reuben Rivlin have made a deal to thwart Netanyahu, and that  . . . . well, you get the idea.

The bottom line is that Netanyahu is terrified of the 52-year-old charismatic Sa’ar. 

But the fact of the matter is that Sa’ar is the best chance that Likud has of staying in power should Netanyahu get indicted in one of the cases that he is currently facing–and, as we have written before, he is almost certainly going to be indicted before the election. Unless Sa’ar is waiting in the wings to pick up the Likud baton, Likud–and the entire Israeli “right”–is likely to collapse in the elections.

By the way, Gideon Sa’ar is eminently qualified to be Prime Minister. Born to immigrants (his father was a physician from Argentina who became David Ben Gurion’s personal physician, and his mother was Bukharian), Sa’ar served meritoriously in the IDF’s Golani Brigade. He later became the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Education in various Netanyahu governments. Your humble servant has always admired what he accomplished in that latter role (for one thing, he reinstituted singing Hatikvah in every classroom everyday).

Also “by the way” . . .

Guess who came in first in the Likud primary in 2008 before the election in 2009? Gideon Sa’ar.

Guess who came in first in the Likud primary in 2012 before the election that year? Gideon Sa’ar.

(In 2014, Sa’ar resigned from politics so he did not run in the 2015 Likud primary).

By tomorrow morning, we should know how the primary turned out. Stay tuned for further details.