“Our friends on the right are with us more than our friends on the left”

As Binyamin Netanyahu flew to Washington for the unveiling of the ambitious Trump Middle East peace proposal, he was already hearing criticism from coalition partners in his government.

But the first to back the prime minister up on the eve of his meeting with the US president was Foreign Minister Gideon Saar — formerly his bitter rival.

“After two years of war,” wrote Saar in a sort of indirect response to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s resignation threat, “it is the clear interest of Israel to end the fighting and achieve its goals.”

It’s safe to say that had Saar not returned to the Likud ranks at the start of 5785, Netanyahu would be starting 5786 facing snap elections.

Last year, Netanyahu was at the mercy of Itamar Ben-Gvir, who left the government in protest of the second hostage deal. Saar’s addition to the right-wing government at the head of his four-strong faction not only weakened the far right’s hand but took the fire out of the protest movement and the opposition benches.

And there’s another angle to Saar’s return. Even at the height of his rivalry with Netanyahu, Saar never lashed out against the chareidim, not even for the sake of appearances. And his current position as a key coalition power broker is one reason Shas and Degel HaTorah still believe that if consensus is reached in the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee on a bill regulating the draft status of Torah learners, there will be a majority for the legislation in the Knesset.

When Saar was appointed to the role of foreign minister one year ago, his former opposition colleagues derided him, predicting that Netanyahu wouldn’t give him room to breathe.

In fact, Saar is involved even in the most sensitive and personal front for Netanyahu — relations with the Trump administration. A month ago, on the eve of the strike in Qatar, Saar was in Washington alongside Netanyahu’s closest confidant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.

In the wake of Trump’s big announcement in Washington, let’s talk about the war in Gaza. I want to go back to a conversation I had with you ten years ago, when you were a cabinet minister. You said then that until we enter Gaza and cleanse it of Hamas, there will never be a solution.

My question to you is: Bottom line, will we achieve our goals in Gaza, despite Trump’s proposal and all the international pressure? Or will we have to give up on some of our aims?

Look, we waited too long. And to be precise, our conversation took place a little over ten years ago, when I was interior minister, and I had genuine criticisms of the way Operation Protective Edge ended. I thought we should have aimed for the defeat of Hamas and the demilitarization of the strip. It’s very complicated.

But the cabinet decision [to eradicate Hamas], out of recognition of center of gravity and organization of Hamas, both militarily and symbolically, was clear. The government gave the order, outlined the goals, and now IDF soldiers are fighting to carry them out. I think at this juncture it would be better to do less talking, let the IDF do the work on the ground, and let the prime minister handle the politics. I trust the prime minister to steer us toward the objective.

You served as foreign minister through one of the most complex years in Israel’s history. We had one of our finest hours, displaying capabilities that stunned not only our enemies and allies but ourselves as well. But it was also one of the toughest periods for Israel diplomatically.

There is an attempt to lay siege to Israel diplomatically, but Israel isn’t isolated. To give you an idea, I’ll just describe the events of the week before the chagim. We had a visit by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Of all the countries in the world, he chose to visit us, a second time. And believe me, other Western countries, and all the more so Middle Eastern ones, would give a lot for a visit from the US secretary of state.

Sometimes it seems that all we have left is America, and even that with a grain of salt.

But that’s the thing, you’re wrong. To give a current example — just after the new year, Fiji, a country located in the South Pacific, became the seventh country to open an embassy in Jerusalem.

When you talk about isolation, you have to put things in the right context. There’s definitely an attempt to lay siege to Israel, like the military blockade they tried to impose on us in the past, which we lifted. Now, the idea is to impose a diplomatic blockade, to force Israel to accept certain things that it cannot accept — and won’t accept under any circumstances — such as the establishment of a Palestinian state, which is a threat to the future and security of Israel. And we’re working with our friends around the world to break out of this blockade.

And let’s be honest — it’s not like the past was so great. Recognition of a Palestinian state by UN members isn’t something new. Israel has always been and still is a minority in the UN, and the number of allies who vote with it is relatively small. We survived, and we’ll continue to survive.

Global Right

You rightly point out that the recognition of a Palestinian state wasn’t born in Paris in 2025. But we’ve always clung to a “quality minority” of countries that stand with us, including much of Western Europe. Today, our greatest allies — with the exception of the United States, which we’ll get back to — aren’t with us. We saw President Macron leading the push to recognize a Palestinian state, and British Prime Minister Starmer beat him to it by a day. The sense is that too many Western nations have turned their backs on us.

You can’t start a story from the middle. You mention that the PA already has UN observer status. Do you know how many countries already recognized a Palestinian state, long before Macron’s initiative? I don’t know if your readers are aware of this, but we’re talking about over 140 countries that had already recognized a Palestinian state. So now there are 150, maybe a few more by the time you go to print.

That just makes it worse.

I’m not saying we should ignore it — on the contrary. But there’s one thing I can say with certainty: On the ground, there has never been and there never will be a Palestinian state. It’s true that there are a number of Western countries — mainly those where the left is in power, such as France, the UK, or Canada — which for various reasons have changed their position, mainly under political pressure from leftist circles. This is a consequence of social and demographic changes in those countries, and we need to figure out who we can work with, who our enemies are, and act accordingly. Israel still has many friends in the world, including in Europe.

Apropos our remaining friends, even in Britain we saw hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets recently at the right’s big rally. How do you approach the dilemma of relations between Israel and the European right? When we forge ties with the European right, which is largely pro-Israel, are we not at the same time legitimizing parties that in some sense are giving a wink and a nod to neo-Nazism or at least dark periods in European history?

The friends you just mentioned have no ties to neo-Nazism — these are completely legitimate parties. When I entered the foreign ministry, I completed a process begun by my predecessor, an investigation of six parties further to the right of European politics. We plotted them on two axes, one axis examining their current positions on Israel, and the second axis examining their positions on issues such as Holocaust denial and Holocaust remembrance. And we cut off all ties with any party that we found to not have a very firm and clear stance on Holocaust commemoration and disavowing any form of Holocaust denial. And we authorized opening full ties with parties we found to be totally legitimate.

And you’re saying that we took no shortcuts in our desperation to find friends in Europe?

We drew a clear and uncompromising line when it came to this. Look, it’s true that unfortunately we don’t have a lot of friends on the left, either in Europe or around the world, whereas we do have friends on the right. And you can see this dividing line. Most of the governments that have yet to recognize a Palestinian state — say Germany, Italy, Croatia, or Greece — are right-wing governments. And those that have recognized are generally left-wing governments.

Of course, there are very fascinating historical twists. For example, two great friends of ours, which stand beside us like a rock in the EU, Hungary and the Czech Republic, were once on the other side and supported recognition, back in the late ’80s, during the Communist period, when there was a wave of recognition. So it’s not an iron law, but you can generalize: Our friends on the right are with us more than our friends on the left.

Charlie’s Legacy

Let’s talk about the American right, after the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk. We saw the reactions in the US, and the renewed discourse regarding the campaign of hate and the seemingly limitless funding for it. In a recent conversation I had with former UN ambassador Gilad Erdan, he said that when he entered the position, the budget for the American hasbarah effort was about $10,000.

My question to you is, in light of the Qatari money flowing in — and they’re now targeting influential Republican figures as well — are we not losing parts of the American right?

When I joined the government, my condition was that I get total responsibility over the hasbarah issue. I wanted more, but in the end, I got just a bit over NIS 500,000, and that’s not a lot, given what Israel faces around the world. But it’s a lot more than we had previously, and we really are doing a lot more.

For example, there are big delegations coming to Israel — that’s part of it. And there are also campaigns in the various important countries. But as I said, Israel dominates the global news cycle — with a Western media that’s largely hostile and with social media where we’re a small minority. So am I saying that’s enough? It’s not enough. We’re trying to carry out more efforts, and we will.

But aren’t you worried that we’ll lose our special status among large swaths of the American right, as well? Anyone following developments in the US understands that — especially among young right-wingers — we’re in a crisis situation.

I wouldn’t say that we’re in a crisis situation. I would say there are things we need to pay attention to. And you’re right, among young Republicans or young evangelicals, if you study the polls — and we did our own poll — you see that support is lower than it is among older generations. Secondly, there are attempts in countries such as Qatar to infiltrate the American right and try to agitate against Israel in certain circles. We’re aware of these developments.

And we can acknowledge that not only in the administration, but also in both houses of Congress, support for Israel is tremendous. But we need to preserve it for the long term and see both what our weaknesses are and what are enemies are trying to do, and actually address that.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1082)