To save himself, Netanyahu might agree to keep rotation agreement

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s priorities over the past year have been clear: Squeezing the final drops from the succulent orange named President Donald Trump, fighting the health and economic crises induced by the coronavirus pandemic and cheating Defense Minister Benny Gantz out of the power-sharing deal he promised him. He continues to tar every rival with the “leftist” label that he had made synonymous with treason, even when the rivals’ political convictions are farther to the right than his own, as is the case with Yamina party Chair Naftali Bennett, Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman and former Likud stalwart Gideon Saar.

This list of priorities, however, is misleading. Netanyahu does not care deeply about any of them. He only cares about one coveted target, unique and glaring, ominously blipping on his radar — how to make his criminal indictment on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust go away. He is fully mobilized, 24/7, hatching plots and planning escape routes from the long arm of the law, and specifically from his trial that will reach its dramatic witness testimony and evidence stage in February 2021. There is absolutely nothing Netanyahu will not do to avoid this fiasco. Nothing at all.

However, the prime minister’s machinations were dealt a deadly knockout this week when Netanyahu’s former confidant Saar announced that he was quitting the Likud and forming a new right-wing party, a liberal, dignified alternative to the Likud in the spirit of its late founder and prime minister, Menachem Begin. Two refugees from Gantz’s Blue and White party — Knesset members Zvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel — have joined him. Three Likud lawmakers — Yifat Shasha-Biton, Sharren Haskel and Michal Shir — are also expected to cross the lines. Polls conducted on the day after Saar’s shocking announcement gave the party the equivalent of 15-18 Knesset seats — before it even had an official name.

Saar has made it clear he plans to replace Netanyahu. If he recruits the hottest name in the political betting pools these days — former army Chief Lt. Gen. Gazi Eizenkot — he stands a chance. Even without Eizenkot and with only half the seats envisioned by the polls, one thing is obvious. There is no way Saar or anyone else from his party would vote in favor of what is known as the “French Law," which protects incumbent prime ministers from criminal prosecution, or for any of the legal loopholes that Netanyahu has examined to avoid trial.