Senior Likud renegade Yuli Edelstein leaving party to forge a ‘new political path’

Senior lawmaker Yuli Edelstein, a critic of the government’s bill to exempt Haredi men from military service, has announced he is leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to forge “a new political path.”

“I don’t intend to run in the Likud primaries. I’ll set off on a new political path,” Edelstein said in a snippet that Channel 12 published Friday from an interview that will air in full Saturday night.

The Likud party primaries are scheduled for August 4, ahead of the national election that is set to take place by October 27. The snippet of the interview did not include any further comment from Edelstein on his plans or rationale.

“There are members who, right now, are surprised to hear what I’m saying, and they’ll say: ‘Yuli, what are you doing? We’ve supported him for decades, we would have supported him this time around, too — why is he doing this?'” Edelstein said in the brief clip.

Former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, who polls show is Netanyahu’s lead challenger in the upcoming election, wrote on X that Edelstein’s decision to leave Likud was “worthy of every praise.”

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“I hope Yuli Edelstein will be a symbol and example for others in the Likud who aren’t prepared to risk state security and promote draft-dodging for the sake of narrow politics,” Eisenkot said.

Edelstein reportedly in talks to form ‘Likud B’

Channel 12 news reported Thursday that Edelstein recently made progress in talks with former justice minister Ayelet Shaked on forming a more “statesmanlike” alternative to the Likud.

The two have been mentioned for months in reports about the potential party, dubbed “Likud B,” that analysts have speculated could also include former Likud minister and UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan and current Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel.

Edelstein and Haskel were among four coalition lawmakers who voted this week against a government-backed quasi-constitutional bill that would shield Haredi draft dodgers from criminal sanctions by equating Torah study with military service.

The government has sought to codify the Haredi military service exemption since the Supreme Court ruled in June 2024 that the decades-long policy had no legal basis.

Last year, Likud booted Edelstein as chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after he insisted on effective sanctions against Haredi draft dodgers, which frustrated the government’s bid to pass a bill acceptable to ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.

Edelstein, 68, was born in present-day Ukraine and was detained by Soviet authorities in the 1980s for teaching Hebrew.

Upon his release in 1987, he moved to Israel, and was first elected to the Knesset in 1996 as co-leader of Yisrael Ba’aliyah, a right-wing party that appealed to Russian-speaking immigrants who arrived in Israel en masse at the time from the former Soviet Union.

In 2003, the party merged with Likud, which Edelstein has since represented in the Knesset except for a short break in 2006-2007. As a Likud member, he has served in senior positions, including Knesset speaker and COVID-era health minister.

Edelstein once enjoyed firm support within the Likud and won the party’s 2019 primary, placing him second only to Netanyahu on the Likud’s electoral slate ahead of that year’s March election, which was the first of five that Israel had between 2019 and 2022.

In 2021, when the Likud was briefly out of power, Edelstein announced he would challenge Netanyahu for the party leadership, but ultimately withdrew the bid. When the Likud next held primaries ahead of Israel’s most recent election, in late 2022, Edelstein dropped from second to 18th place on the party’s electoral slate.

Stav Levaton contributed to this report.