Arutz Sheva spoke to New Hope Party candidate former Consul in New York and Yesha Council head Dani Dayan about why he chose New Hope, and what kind of government he'd like to see.
Dayan opened by good-naturedly accepting well-wishes for his return to politics, saying: “I was in the periphery of politics for many years, so I was not very surprised, and I'm old enough to deal with it. I hope nevertheless that I will continue to be sensitive - sensitive to criticism, and sensitive to praise; not to take the criticism too harshly, and not to take the praise to seriously.”
Is New Hope a Right-leaning party? "We broke the paradigm that if you are Right-wing, you are an Eretz Yisrael loyalist, then you have to be also what we call in Israel a ‘Bibist’, an unconditional loyalist of Binyamin Netanyahu.
"We believe that after twelve consecutive years of Prime Minister, and an additional three earlier on in the 90s, it's about time that we replace the Prime Minister Netanyahu. Netanyahu of 2021 is not Binyamin Netanyahu of 2009 or 2013, it is deteriorating, and we are afraid it will continue.
”So we are definitely a center-Right party, loyal to Eretz Yisrael, loyal to Jewish values, but we came to replace, the too-long government.”
Asked to describe his dream government, Dayan said: “Look, we strive to form a national unity government, a national unity government that will be also a healing government, a government that will comprise in the spirit of Yitzchak Shamir. all the parties that want a Jewish and democratic State of Israel, and that includes everybody; that includes Likud, obviously, that can serve under Gideon Sa’ar as Prime Minister, that includes the religious parties, that includes also Yesh Atid, which, you know, a government in which we will have Gideon Sa’ar as Prime Minister, Yamina of Naftali Bennett as the senior partner, Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beyteinu, Betzalel Smotrich, probably also the haredi parties, and if the Likud comes, even better.
“We’ll be a Right-wing party, even if there are some players that do not adhere to that definition.
“By the way, that was always the tactic of Netanyahu, to include Ehud Barak, he even included Tzipi Livni, that I thought, I think it was a step too far. So that will definitely be a national goal, a center-Right government. It will be able to do good things, that's the way we are, the way we understand, good things; even in a more easy way than the Netanyahu government,” said Dayan.