Only a few days after Interior Minister Gideon Saar’s dramatic announcement on Sept. 17, many of his former supporters have started to look for another Likud Party official to support. Saar’s colleagues in the faction, who are eyeing the now-empty interior minister slot, did not wait even a day: They went out and demanded their booty that very evening. Politics abhors a vacuum.
Saar’s announcement was greeted with shock. In contrast to stories that are popping up that he was ready to resign several times in the last two years, in truth, not one of Saar’s hundreds of faithful followers expected such a step. On the contrary: Saar allowed them to think that he hoped to run for the Likud leadership. They came to the celebratory New Year’s toast on Wednesday because they viewed the interior minister as a rising star in the party, maybe even the next leader. Prominent Likud members who conversed with Saar in recent months, when the disconnect between the prime minister and Saar was at its height, never got the impression that the latter had intentions of resigning. In fact, in some of these personal conversations Saar discussed openly the scenario of running against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The important thing that Saar understood from these tête-à-têtes is that he would be unable to recruit a significant camp of Likud seniors to run against Netanyahu for Likud chairman, so long as the latter remained prime minister. Simultaneously, Saar put out a feeler to former Communication Minister Moshe Kahlon, who is trying to found a new party. Both of them are “Bibi's [Netanyahu] victims,” both are among the most popular of the Likud officials and both certainly share a common language. Nevertheless, they were unable to reach understandings about running together on the same platform. Thus, we see that Saar examined possibilities of continuing his political career outside the Likud.
Netanyahu was well aware of Saar’s political moves and received reports almost in real time on several of Saar’s tête-à-têtes. Thus, Netanyahu concluded that before Saar could challenge his leadership, he must deliver a pre-emptive blow on his former close associate. (Saar was Cabinet secretary during Netanyahu’s first term in office, and was viewed as being Netanyahu’s political adherent for many years.)
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