Former Likud ministers Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein have confirmed that they will break away from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s faction to form a new right-wing party today.
On Wednesday, the two men said they would be holding a launch event for the currently nameless party this afternoon.
Erdan previously served as Israeli ambassador to the UN between 2020 and 2024 and as interior minister between 2014 and 2015, while Edelstein, a Ukrainian-born refusenik, served as Knesset speaker between 2013 and 2020, and as chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee from 2022 to 2025.
Edelstein was notably ousted from the latter position last year after refusing further compromises in favour of the Charedim in the bill regulating the conscription of strictly-Orthodox men, which the committee was examining at the time.
He subsequently resigned from the Likud last month over the issue, after the final bill presented by his successor, Netanyahu ally Boaz Bismuth, included wide-ranging exemptions for full-time yeshiva students, while the government agreed to freeze the arrest and prosecution of draft dodgers.
Erdan and Edelstein are expected to make Charedi conscription, one of the most divisive issues in Israeli politics, a key part of their new faction’s policy agenda.
On Wednesday, Erdan said in a video posted to X that he was, regarding the party launch, “here to tell you that it’s happening soon, very soon.”
The camera then focused on a shot of Erdan and Edelstein sitting together, followed by the phrase “right-wing, conscription, unity” appearing in the video.
The video also simulated the two men refusing to answer a phone call from United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf, one of the key opponents to greater conscription, with Edelstein adding: “It’s not relevant”.
A poll published last week by Zman Yisrael suggested that the new party, provisionally named “Likud B”, could win as many as five Knesset seats if elections were held immediately.
Back in May, a source with knowledge of the new party stated that the new party wished to create a right-wing Zionist coalition government emphasising economic recovery, security, and settlements, adding that it would be a government that could “rein in the extremists” and include centrist parties from the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
The new party does not include Sharren Haskel, former Deputy Foreign Minister, who announced last year that she would participate in the merger of her New Hope party, led by now-Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, and the Likud.
Instead, she recently announced the creation of a new “Israel First” party, which she confirmed will not include former Finance Minister Moshe Kahalon, who also defected from Likud, after he was convicted of securities reporting offences in May.
Meanwhile, Likud MK Dan Illouz has defected to the Yisrael Beiteinu party and endorsed its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, for prime minister.
Like Edelstein, he cited dissatisfaction with the Charedi draft bill as a key factor in his departure, claiming that Likud has become a “sub-contractor” to the Charedi parties.
"Netanyahu has failed in leading the country, and he must take responsibility and go home,” he added.
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