Tel Aviv mayor claims he, not Sa’ar, is true alternative to Netanyahu and right wing. Meanwhile, Gantz says he’ll keep leading ailing Blue and White, claims he ‘saved the country’.
Ron Huldai announced he would be running in the upcoming elections as leader of a new party to be called “The Israelis.”
In a press conference, Huldai said “the problem is that we have grown accustomed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘corruption and divisive style of leadership'”, and that he would get Israel out of its current despair.
“I will no longer stand idly by, I am here to announce a new party,” he announced, recounting his history as an IDF fighter pilot, as an educator and — for the past 22 years — as the mayor of Tel Aviv.
“We can stop the despair. I’m doing this for my children, and mainly for my grandchildren. Israel can and must be managed differently,” he said, declaring himself — not right-wing politician Gideon Sa’ar and other Likud defectors — as the true alternative to Netanyahu.
“I am also here to speak about values. Why do you think Sa’ar and Elkin, or Bennett and Smotrich, are those who represent you?”
He promised his party would safeguard democracy and the justice system, create socially-minded reforms, care for small businesses and for women’s and minorities’ rights, oppose religious ‘coercion’ and rampant violence in the Arab community. Huldai added he would oppose attempts to annex parts of the West Bank.
“Not being corrupt is nice but not enough. Elect someone you can trust, whom you can believe in,” he said, presenting his first recruit and No. 2, Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn.
Nissenkorn praised Huldai’s leadership and warned that the justice system was “under an unprecedented threat”.
(Times of Israel).