The Media Line: ‘We Don’t Run for the Prime Ministership’: Haskel Defines Israel First as Pollard Joins Slate

‘We Don’t Run for the Prime Ministership’: Haskel Defines Israel First as Pollard Joins Slate

The former deputy foreign minister outlined her conditions for joining a government, promised new candidates with senior military backgrounds, and explained whom she would exclude from a future coalition

By Gabriel Colodro / The Media Line

Jonathan Pollard, flanked by Sharren Haskel and Lt. Col. (Res.) Roi Danino, was the only person to speak in a video filmed near the Western Wall. Looking into the camera, he compared his three decades in an American prison with Israel’s failures on October 7. “My abandonment and betrayal was not the exception,” he said in the recording, published Sunday by Israel First and Haskel. “On October 7th, I saw that the entire country had been abandoned and betrayed.”

In an interview with The Media Line, Israeli lawmaker Sharren Haskel, a former deputy foreign minister and the founder and leader of Israel First, said the party is not organized around a personal campaign to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We don’t run for the prime ministership. We run to fix the broken system of our ministries here in Israel,” she said. Her objective is to win enough seats to demand specific changes in military service, government spending, and coalition policy rather than compete directly with Netanyahu and other party leaders for the premiership.

Haskel said the next stage in building the party’s slate would come Wednesday, when Israel First plans to introduce candidates with senior military backgrounds. She did not disclose their names or prospective places on the list but described them as high-ranking officers who had served during the past three years “in the most dangerous situations.” Their experience, she said, should qualify them for national leadership after years in which soldiers, reservists and their families paid much of the cost of the war.

“Those people need to serve in the highest leadership roles as well, especially after all the prices they’ve paid,” Haskel said. She added that the party was in discussions with several other prospective candidates as it tries to assemble a list before Israel’s October 27 election.

Haskel established Israel First on July 15, one day after resigning from her government position. She left after the passage of legislation freezing arrests and criminal proceedings against ultra-Orthodox draft evaders, a measure she had described as a betrayal of Israelis serving during wartime. The new party presents itself as a home for right-wing voters who support a hard security policy and a liberal economy but will not accept continued military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.

Haskel also presents herself as a different kind of figure in a race she described as dominated by white Ashkenazi men. She said she is currently the only woman leading a party and pointed to her background as a Mizrahi former combat soldier, while placing particular emphasis on being a mother.

After three years of war and the political disputes surrounding military service, she said, Israelis need leaders who approach public responsibility with the determination of a parent protecting a child. “The country needs more mothers that will fight for them, that will defend them and that will do everything in their capability, no matter what the price is, to protect them,” Haskel said.

“We are a right-wing party that refuses to compromise on exemption bills,” Haskel said. “We want real solutions that will recruit the ultra-Orthodox.” People who choose not to serve, she added, should not receive the same public privileges as those carrying the military burden. The party’s announced priorities also include education, civil liberties and Zionist unity, but Haskel placed military service at the center of her explanation of how Israel First differs from other right-wing and center-right parties.

She said Israel First would make two pieces of legislation a condition for joining the next government. The first would establish what she called “border yeshivas” at 15-kilometer intervals along Israel’s frontiers. Under Haskel’s proposal, students would remain within their ultra-Orthodox frameworks while undertaking security roles near Israel’s borders. She said those roles could include patrols, guard duty, intelligence-related work, and efforts to prevent infiltrations or weapons smuggling. Haskel said she first presented the plan more than two years ago and tried to persuade parliamentary colleagues to advance it.

The second proposal would deny government benefits to people who did not serve. If such a person entered a government or municipal position, including as a lawmaker, minister or mayor, their salary during the first three years would be limited to the amount received by a soldier completing three years of service, Haskel said. “If you didn’t serve, you will not receive benefits,” she said. She did not specify which benefits would be affected, whether civilian national service would qualify, or what exemptions would remain available.

The party’s economic program follows the free-market positions Haskel promoted during her years in Likud and New Hope. She called for lower taxes, fewer regulations and a smaller, more efficient state budget, arguing that Israel’s bureaucracy places an excessive burden on families and business owners who have also carried much of the cost of the war. “We have to cut down massively on the amount of bureaucracy and regulations that Israel has,” she said, advocating for directing government spending toward Israelis who work, serve and pay taxes.

Haskel’s proposed coalition does not follow the usual division between parties committed to keeping Netanyahu in office and those promising to remove him. “I’m not in the pocket of anyone,” she said. Israel First would try to form a broad Zionist government that does not depend on the ultra-Orthodox parties or Arab parties, while bringing together right-wing and centrist factions

that currently refuse to sit with one another.

Her treatment of controversial political figures, however, is not uniform. Asked about Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Haskel said some of their statements during the war had damaged Israel’s international position and complicated its work abroad. She nevertheless rejected a blanket boycott of either man, saying she agreed with some of their policies and opposed others.

“There are certain things I agree with and certain things I disagree with,” Haskel said. “You need some critical thinking and to see what policy needs to happen and what doesn’t.” She said judging every proposal according to the identity of the person presenting it had produced an inflexible political system in which parties construct their entire ideology around membership in one camp.

Haskel drew a sharper boundary around Democrats leader Yair Golan and former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert. She accused them of making allegations against Israel and its soldiers that created more damage in foreign media than the remarks by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. As deputy foreign minister, she said, she repeatedly had to answer questions from international reporters about those statements.

She singled out Golan as someone she would not rely on in a future government, arguing that a politician whom she accused of making false accusations against Israeli soldiers during wartime cannot serve as a Zionist coalition partner. That distinction leaves Israel First potentially open to cooperation with Netanyahu’s right-wing partners while closing the door on at least one prominent figure in the opposition bloc.

Before it can shape a coalition, Israel First must cross Israel’s 3.25% electoral threshold. A Maariv poll conducted August 12-13 placed the party at 0.6%, leaving it without parliamentary representation. Haskel’s announcement that senior officers will join the slate is therefore not only an attempt to establish its security credentials, but also part of the immediate effort to give voters more recognizable candidates before the election.

Danino, the first prominent recruit announced by Israel First, joined on August 2. A reserve lieutenant colonel, businessman and security and economic commentator, he has served more than 600 days of reserve duty during the war, according to the statement announcing his entry. The party said he would focus on reducing regulation, lowering the cost of living, and helping reservists and small businesses that suffered financially while their owners were called up.

Pollard adds a more familiar and controversial name. The former US Navy civilian intelligence analyst pleaded guilty to passing classified information to Israel and received a life sentence in 1987. He was released on parole after serving 30 years and moved to Israel in 2020 after his parole restrictions ended. Haskel said Pollard would contribute a security perspective, support for free-market reforms and an interest in education policy, an area she said they had discussed repeatedly.

“He understands how much bureaucracy and regulation Israel has and how much taxes need to be reduced,” Haskel said. “Most of all, he is really passionate about education.” She said his experience in the United States had influenced his view of the Israeli education system and the reforms he believes could be introduced quickly.

Haskel nevertheless rejected one of Pollard’s most controversial positions as Israel First policy. Earlier in the election campaign, Pollard said he favored removing Gaza’s Palestinian residents, annexing the territory and repopulating it with Israelis. “It’s not the stand of Israel First,” Haskel said. She said she understood the argument that relinquishing territory had failed to resolve the conflict and that different options for Gaza should be discussed but defined the party’s immediate position more narrowly.

“Without the destruction of Hamas, without the complete and full disarmament of Hamas, there is absolutely no step Israel can take in order to continue and advance to the second stage in Gaza,” she said.

Pollard did not address that difference in the Western Wall video. Instead, he praised Haskel for helping him without seeking public attention and said Israel needed officials willing to accept responsibility. “You were quiet, you were loyal, and you were effective,” he told her. “And that’s what we need now with a new Knesset.” Pollard said that was why he had decided “to join you and help you,” adding that he hoped to see Haskel in the next Knesset.

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