In a long statement on Saturday evening, United Right chairman MK Gideon Sa’ar announced that he was giving up the offer to replace Yoav Gallant as defense minister after news broke on Monday that the political deal to bring his party into the government was close to fruition.
Sa’ar wrote that due to the recent escalation of the security situation in the North, he did not want the leaders of the defense establishment to operate with any uncertainty regarding a major replacement hanging over their heads for an unlimited period.
The United Right leader added that an unlimited period would also lead to an “unhinged incitement and delegitimization campaign” against him.
In the statement, Sa’ar said that the fact that he was not a career security official was an advantage rather than a disadvantage, as many claimed throughout the week. He quoted the Winograd Committee report following the Second Lebanon War, which said that a non-establishment defense minister was advantageous in that it could strengthen the minister’s role as directing and overseeing security, as opposed to running the IDF itself, which is the purview of the General Staff.
Successful non-security establishment defense ministers
Sa’ar gave examples of what he claimed were successful non-security establishment defense ministers, including David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin following the resignation of Ezer Weizman in 1981, Moshe Arens, and Simon Peres. He then pointed out that some of what he claimed were the “largest military and strategic disasters” in Israel’s history occurred under defense ministers who were career security officials – for example, the October 7 Hamas massacre, the Yom Kippur War, the “reckless, one-sided” retreats from Gaza in 2005 and Lebanon in 2000, and the Oslo Accords.
Sa’ar laid out his years of experience on the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee and its subcommittee on intelligence, as well as serving in five national security cabinets – three as a minister and two as a government secretary – as well as serving as a national security researcher during a period away from politics. He argued that his diplomatic and security policies during the past two decades proved “correct and precise” and that Israel needed an “updated security approach” after “years in which a significant part” of the security establishment “atrophied or was corrupted.”
He concluded that he would continue to act “to promote an approach of decisiveness instead of attrition and erosion, on all fronts.”
Reports indicate that Sa’ar received offers for the defense ministry and another ministry for his deputy, MK Ze’ev Elkin. According to reports, he also received assurances that he and his three MKs would be able to rejoin the Likud’s list in the next election. Neither the prime minister’s office nor Sa’ar publicly addressed the negotiations, and they refused to respond to repeated queries, making it impossible to independently confirm the reports.
The Hostage Family Forum, which represents a large majority of the families of the remaining 101 Israelis in Hamas captivity, said in a statement that it praised Sa’ar’s decision. The forum said that Sa’ar opposed the “holy duty” of a deal to return the hostages, which was the war’s “utmost goal,” and therefore could not lead the defense ministry or the IDF, “whose entire existence is based on camaraderie and that no one is left behind.”
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