World News | Israel Foreign Minister Bolsters Netanyahu's Party with Merger

Tel Aviv [Israel], March 14 (ANI): Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar agreed to dissolve his right-wing New Hope faction into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, the two parties announced on Thursday (local time), The Times of Israel reported.

This came five years after Sa'ar bolted the ruling faction following a failed leadership, primary bid against Netanyahu, as per The Times of Israel.

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The announcement comes six months after Sa'ar reentered the government -- having joined shortly following the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, before resigning in March -- and follows consistent polls showing his party would fail to clear the electoral threshold if it ran solo in the next election.

https://x.com/gidonsaar/status/1900212595019120727

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"The differences between us, from a historical perspective, will seem like insignificant nuances compared to the destructive intentions of our enemies and the immense challenges before us," He said in his post on X.Sa'ar said his party "never abandoned the right-wing worldview". Israeli politics "should have changed beyond recognition" following the Hamas onslaught, said Sa'ar in a jab at his former allies in the opposition. "Not everyone understood that."He ended with a 1981 quote from Likud's first leader, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin: "If there are a few holier-than-thou types turning up their noses, let their noses be turned up."The Likud-New Hope agreement must still be approved by Likud's secretariat and central committee and will require the party to scrap an August 2021 resolution barring members of New Hope from serving in Likud, the two parties said.The statement added that once approved, New Hope's roughly 2,400 members will be registered as Likud members; Sa'ar and his party's lawmakers will gain seats on the Likud secretariat, of which Likud Knesset members and ministers are statutory members; and Sa'ar will be entitled to choose 100 members of the Likud's thousands-strong central committee, whose members are selected by the party's local branches, as per Times of Israel. (ANI)

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