The connection between new hope and blue and white is not as trivial as it seems.
Data from the "Israeli Election Survey" of 2021, conducted at the School of Political Science at Tel Aviv University, found that 41% of Gantz voters identify as moderate, compared to only 6% of Saar voters.
On the other hand, 58% of Saar voters identified as moderate, compared to only 24% of Gantz voters.
That is, voters of significant new hope are more right-wing than blue-and-white supporters.
The positions of the parties are also different, with political moderation on the part of Ganz versus nationalist hawkishness on the part of Saar.
In fact, ideologically, blue and white voters are similar to voters who have a future.
So what made the two unite after all?
This may be due to Saar's fear of not passing the blocking percentage.
However, this consideration does not, in itself, explain why he is a member of Gantz, which is affiliated with the center-left.
This question requires an examination of the map of the ideological divides in Israel.
Since 1967, the main fault line between right and left has revolved around the question of the conflict with the Palestinians and the tensions between Jews and Arabs.
Even today, if we want to know who a particular person will vote for, the best predictive question is his positions on this issue.
The connection between Saar and Gantz crosses these lines.
So the key question is what unites Saar and Gantz, and whether it is a temporary crisis or a redesign of the ideological map.
On the one hand, it is possible that the answer lies in the personal hostility of both of them towards Netanyahu.
According to this interpretation, Saar promises that the votes of his supporters will not be lost and will give Netanyahu 61 seats, while Ganz is trying to attract votes from the liberal right against Netanyahu.
On the other hand, the reason may be more than a tactical-personal move.
The New Alliance can hint at the rise of a new political axis, which separates between liberal-state parties that sanctify the rule of law and parties that seek to reshape the political-institutional system in Israel.
It is not for nothing that Netanyahu, who is in a personal legal war for survival, has made an alliance with ultra-Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox parties seeking to weaken the judiciary, strengthen the power of the government and base the state's Judaism on its democratic and egalitarian nature. Re-alignment of the map of the parties and their voters.
Thus, the union raises a dramatic question about the future of Israeli politics.
If the personal factor is the motive, the justification for its existence will disappear when Netanyahu steps down from the stage of Israeli politics.
In such a situation, the parties will return to their natural ideological position and will continue to quarrel over the conflict with the Palestinians and Jewish-Arab relations.
However, if it is an axis that stabilizes beyond the current crisis, it may mark new ideological lines of confrontation that place the secular-liberal bloc, which unites pigeons and hawks who want to maintain the existing democratic-institutional system, against those who seek to change it fundamentally.
The coming years will be critical to understanding this dramatic issue.
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