Under an almost unprecedented media cover, and without criticism in the studios and in the headlines, Gideon Sa'ar and the members of 'New Hope' allow themselves to dig in their promise not to sit under Netanyahu, and to bring the entire right-wing camp, to which they claim to belong, down to the underworld.
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While the Likud is clashing with Naftali Bennett, who is pushing back at the prime ministership, and while Yair Lapid is closing coalition agreements with more and more parties in the left-wing camp before finally turning to the two right-wing parties that are supposed to fulfill his goal of removing Netanyahu from power, Gideon Sa'ar remains outside the fray, as an observer from the sidelines, waiting for the right moment when he will throw down all the values in whose name he built an entire political career, and nothing is left to say or do.
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The enthusiasm to replace Netanyahu is so great that he is forgiven for everything. After all, he promised not to sit under Netanyahu, so all he is doing now is keeping his word, they explain and absolve themselves of any further accountability that he and his party members must give.
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Saar did indeed pledge not to sit under Netanyahu. However, unlike the leftist camp, where the boycott of Netanyahu is mainly motivated by the indictments and disagreements on various issues such as the status of the judicial system and relations between religion and state, Gideon Saar had a completely different rationale.
When Saar founded Tikva Hadasha, he spoke of Netanyahu's personal conduct, "putting himself before the good of the state." The most prominent example he used in all his media interviews in the days after leaving Likud was the fact that Netanyahu is dragging the State of Israel into repeated election campaigns.
In Ze'ev Elkin's surprising and particularly sharp retirement speech, the No. 3 in Sa'ar's party told how he was shocked when it became clear to him that Netanyahu, due to personal considerations, was dragging the country into additional elections, even though he believed he could have stopped it if he had wanted to.
""Mr. Prime Minister," Elkin said in his speech, "I know you well and know that you are watching us. You know the simple truth. To take the entire country for a fourth unnecessary election in two years, out of personal considerations, is a delusional election.".
Now the wheel has turned. As long as it was possible to form a left-wing government, so be it. However, in a week, when it seems likely that Yair Lapid will lose his mandate and the possibility of forming a left-wing government will be permanently removed from the agenda, who will be the ones who, out of personal considerations, ego, and revenge, will drag the country into additional elections, "false" as Elkin put it?
These will be Saar, Elkin and their friends.
It turns out that fifth choices are not as far-fetched as fourth choices. Or that personal considerations are not so terrible, depending of course on who is weighing them.
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In days when such fateful issues are on the agenda for the right-wing camp: regulating the status of the court vis-à-vis the government and the Knesset, training the young settlers in Judea and Samaria, repelling international pressure to open diplomatic negotiations, campaigning against the US on the nuclear agreement, standing up to the ultra-liberal surge that threatens to uproot every good traditional Jewish plot, Gideon Sa'ar and the members of 'New Hope' prefer to do everything, but everything, from a government with the most leftist currents in the legislature, who support an investigation against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, to dragging the country into a fifth election - the main reason why they attacked Netanyahu - the main thing is that they can see the prime minister leave his seat soon.
If there is still moral and political corruption that we have not yet seen, the members of 'New Hope' arrived and taught us how deep the bottom of the abyss still is.
