Hostage brother, former spy & Druze party enter Israeli politics as election fever risesd

With new elections set for the end of October at the latest, Israel’s political scene is slowly but steadily gearing up for a stormy election campaign, with the brother of a freed hostage, a former spy, and a new Druze party joining the fray this week.

Channel 12 News reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is even considering moving up the elections to September, which coincides with the start of the Hebrew month of Elul, a favorable time for the ultra-Orthodox parties to mobilize their voters.

The most significant moves have so far come from the opposition, where former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid teamed up in a bid to replace the Likud as the largest party in the Knesset – though with limited success so far, if the polls are to be believed.

Their move has triggered an avalanche of smaller maneuvers in the opposition bloc this week.

The single most significant decision is up to Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar party has been polling as the second-largest opposition list with roughly 15 seats, and who has courted offers to join from Bennett, Lapid, and Avigdor Liberman.

Liberman’s hawkish opposition party, Yisrael Beitenu, this week announced that Sharon Sharabi, the brother of former hostage Eli Sharabi and of slain hostage Yossi Sharabi, had joined it.

Sharabi garnered publicity as a prominent and tireless advocate for the release of his brothers and the other hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7. A religiously observant resident of the settlement Alfei Menashe in central Samaria, Sharabi said he joined the vocally secular party out of a “deep responsibility toward Israeli society as a whole.”

Sharabi also stressed that he had been a supporter of Netanyahu’s Likud party in the past, which he said has abandoned its traditional “national, statesmanlike and security-focused” values.

“Today, ‘the Likud of the past’ is Yisrael Beytenu,” Sharabi said, praising Liberman as “a true right-wing leader,” and the only senior Israeli leader who wasn’t convinced by the pre-Oct. 7 “conceptzia” that Hamas had been deterred.

In the opposition bloc, this week saw another significant move with the exit of widely respected Knesset Member Chili Tropper from Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party on Sunday. He vowed to meet with “anyone I believe should be part of rebuilding the country’s leadership,” before deciding on what path he will take to “contribute most effectively to the people of Israel.”

His announcement was met with swift praise from Bennett and Eisenkot, who are reportedly interested in bringing Trooper into their respective parties. Fellow Blue and White lawmakers Matan Kahana and Orit Farkash-Hacohen have already joined Yashar, founded by Eisenkot last year after he himself left Gantz’s foundering party.

Meanwhile, two other significant developments occurred on the other side of the political map.

Jonathan Pollard announced Monday that he would enter politics, alongside Nissim Louk, the father of German-Israeli woman Shani Louk, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

Pollard is a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who spent 30 years in prison for spying for Israel, before being released in 2015 and immigrating to Israel five years later. He said that the 2023 Hamas massacre was a turning point, spurring his entry into politics.

The religiously observant Pollard espoused hard-line views on the future of the Gaza Strip, expressing support for a “full transfer” of its population and its annexation while advocating for overall more hawkish policies in the war in an interview with Channel 13.

Speaking about Netanyahu, Pollard said he “pounds his chest and says we’ve never been more successful, ever, in fighting our enemies, and I’m sorry but that is a cold-blooded lie.”

However, he said the democratic process demands that he cooperate with him, while noting he would not cooperate with Bennett due to his previous security decisions – a likely reference to the maritime deal with Hezbollah made by the Lapid/Bennett government.

Nissim Louk’s daughter Shani became one of the symbols of the horrific massacre by Hamas terrorists, who paraded her lifeless body in the back of a pickup truck on Oct. 7. IDF soldiers recovered her body in May 2024.

Also Monday, Col. (res.) Wajdi Sarhan announced the establishment of the Druze Brit Achim (Alliance of Brothers) party, the first independent Druze party to run in national elections since 1992.

Sarhan is the former commander of the disbanded Druze battalion and former head of the IDF’s Population Administration. He said his party is projected to garner “between two and two and a half seats to the ballot box and become the next kingmaker in the Knesset.”

In the past, Druze lawmakers have been integrated into a variety of parties; however, the Druze population is generally seen as leaning toward hawkish policies.

Sarhan criticized the actions of the government on the northern front, saying, “The residents of the north will no longer tolerate one round after another. We will demand a decision. It is time for the north, the most beautiful region of the country, to flourish with real security.”

It is unclear which bloc the Druze party intends to eventually join; however, Sarhan said he is in talks with several political figures to examine strategic alliances.