In the late morning hours of Dec. 9, former minister Gideon Saar presented himself at the Knesset speaker’s office to hand in his resignation. Just 12 hours earlier, the veteran lawmaker had dropped a bombshell announcing at a press conference on Facebook his intention to quit the Likud and run against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Saar told the journalists waiting outside the speaker’s office, “I will return in the 24th Knesset as the head of a large political force that will replace the government.”