From Radical Roots to Defense Minister: Uncovering the Complex Past of Gideon Saar
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Announces Sacking of Defense Minister Yoav
Posted on: Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 02:01 PM
Written by: Asma Al-Batakoshi
Netanyahu Replaces Defense Minister with Gideon Saar
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the sacking of Defense Minister Yoav and replacing him with Gideon Saar. This decision comes after some members of the government demanded the removal of the <a href="https://www.newsdirectory3.com/ukraine-replaces-defense-minister-accused-of-corruption-the-successor-is-the-37-year-old-military-intelligence-chief/" title="Ukraine replaces defense minister accused of corruption… The successor is the 37-year-old military intelligence chief”>current defense minister.
According to Hebrew media, Netanyahu announced his willingness to fire Galant and replace him with Saar, after some members of the government demanded a defense minister, the extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gavir, who spoke about defense. Minister, “He should be fired immediately.”
The decision comes after a disagreement between Netanyahu and Gallant over the conduct of an extended war in Lebanon and the failure so far to reach an agreement with Hamas on a prisoner exchange and a cease-fire in Gaza.
Despite widely circulated reports of talks with Netanyahu’s Circle Sa’ar, the prime minister has denied discussing the matter, while a spokesman for the head of the National Right Party said there was “nothing new” in the file.
Israeli Channel 12 reported that if Saar is unsuccessful in securing the post of defense minister, he may take the post of foreign minister, while Israel Katz will take Gallant’s position.
Who is Gideon Saar?
Gideon Saar was the man the prisoners’ families warned, as he said in a statement that his appointment as defense minister would be “a clear acknowledgment by the prime minister that he has decided to abandon the prisoners permanently”, explaining that “previously Knesset member Saar clearly and publicly expressed his opposition.”
After the October 7 war, and the outbreak of Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip, Gideon Saar said: The Gaza Strip should be smaller at the end of the war between Israel and Hamas, during an interview he conducted with Hebrew Channel 12.
Gideon Saar was famous for his opposition to the two-state solution, repeating in his interviews that “returning to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state is a mistake, as he declared in 2020 that “there will be no more independent state between the Jordan River and the sea.”
Gideon Saar, who was born in 1966, was a member of the Israeli Knesset for the Likud Party between 2003 and 2014. He held the portfolio of Ministry of Education between 2009 and 2013, while in 2013 and 2014 he assumed the portfolio of Ministry of Home Affairs, announcing his resignation from the same post in 2014.
The head of the National Right Party returned to his political activism in 2019, as he ran against Netanyahu for the leadership of the “ruling” Likud Party, leaving the Knesset the following year to found a new party, New Hope. He also briefly served as Deputy Prime Minister of Israel in 2021.
It is notable that in his teenage years, he joined the “Long Live the Extremist Nationalists” movement in 1982 to protest the eviction of Israeli settlements in Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula.