Report: Bennett Eyes New National Camp With Liberman, Sa’ar

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is eyeing a new “national camp” in Israeli politics that would run together with his Yamina Party in the next elections and would include some of his current political allies such as Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope Party, Channel 12 reported.

In a series of media interviews released on Thursday, Bennett indicated that plans were in the works to build a new right-wing bloc that would potentially rival the traditional “national camp” led by the Likud.

“What is being built right now is a new national camp,” he said in a Walla interview, adding that, despite heading a politically diverse coalition, he claimed he is “still a man of the right.”

Channel 12 reported Friday that Bennett’s vision for a new national camp would include Yisrael Beytenu and New Hope. It also said that the future of Ayelet Shaked, his close political ally and running partner in Yamina, was uncertain amid rising tensions between the two. The report said that Shaked is perceived as having “one foot out of the door,” even as other political avenues for her – including with the Likud – were unclear.

Both Shaked and Bennett worked for the Likud’s longtime leader, former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and were both believed in recent years to have wanted to join Likud, but Netanyahu and his wife reportedly blocked their entry to the party due to their personal distaste for them. The pair have navigated a rocky political road over the past few years, including failing to get into the Knesset in the April 2019 elections after leaving Jewish Home to form the New Right Party, and later reuniting to lead the Yamina alliance.

Current tensions between Bennett and Shaked reportedly stem, in part, from her disquiet over some of Yamina’s coalition partners. In October, Shaked sharply criticized Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, whom she called “shallow,” and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, casting doubt on whether the premiership rotation agreement between Bennett and Lapid would be honored.

Since the formation of the coalition, Bennett has been consistently assailed by the Likud Party. The Likud and its allies have called Bennett’s right-wing bona fides into question and have accused him of betraying the right after he vowed in the 2021 election campaign not to join forces with Lapid.