By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has a serious challenger, not from the Opposition but from his own Likud party. Gideon Sa’ar, a man in his early fifties, with a very credible history in Likud, as a Member of Knesset for many years and as a minister of education and interior, aspires to be the new star on Israel’s political firmament. He’s a candidate for party leader at the Likud primaries to be held later this month and daring to challenge “King Bibi.”
Sa’ar is a Likud party faithful, a right-winger who opposes the idea of a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. He maintains that Netanyahu has never denounced his earlier commitment to the two-state solution that – according to Sa’ar and others – is now as obsolete as Netanyahu is as prime minister.
Sa’ar also argues that Netanyahu has no chance to form a government after the general election next May implying that letting him continue as the leader of the party is a formula for allowing the Opposition to take over.
Sa’ar is being openly supported by several Likud Members of Knesset, which means that if he doesn’t win – which is very likely, alas – they will not be in Netanyahu’s good books and kept out of office. It’s possible that several of their party colleagues in the legislature will also vote for Sa’ar but don’t wish to say so in public in order not to jeopardize their careers, should Netanyahu win.
Not being a Likud supporter, I should really hope that Sa’ar’s challenge will not yield the result he wants, because his victory may very well keep the right-wingers in power. Yet it’s obvious that Israel needs a different leader, even if s/he comes from the same ideological camp. If the Opposition without has no chance, let at least the opposition within win.
Netanyahu has been prime minister for far too long. The fifteen-or-so years younger Sa’ar may lack the experience and even the “charisma” of Netanyahu, but his is a fresh voice and the country needs it, even if the message isn’t very progressive.
However, most Likud members voting in the primary and many Israelis voting in the next general election may not think so. Like in the case of Trump, though the “elites” may despair of their current leader, those who feel economically and culturally wronged by these “elites” may want to keep Trump as the president of the United States and Netanyahu as the prime minister of Israel.
In the case of Israel, this may mean – to say it again – that the outcome of the next election won’t be very different from the result of the last one, and Israel may continue to be in political limbo.
Though for some Jews living in Israel the outcome may be a matter of either staying or leaving, it’s an issue that should engage every Jew wherever s/he may live.
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Rabbi Dow Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. Now a resident citizen of Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com