Party founder Yoaz Hendel served as a minister of communications from 2019 to 2021 and is a former Knesset Member.

Elections in Israel are scheduled for October but could be moved up. Within the political spectrum, a new party was founded last year and will run in these elections. It is called ‘’Miluimnikim’’ or The Reservists.

It consists of “reservists, families of reservists, wounded IDF soldiers, bereaved families and civilian volunteers’’ and positions itself asn a response to the leadership vacuum that followed the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in the south of Israel.

Party founder Yoaz Hendel served as a minister of communications from 2019 to 2021 and is a former Knesset Member. He is also an author, historian, journalist,  publicist, public activist, businessman and a IDF battalion commander in the reserves.

‘’I quit politics three and a half years ago. I came back last year and founded the new party which is center-right,’’ he told a group of journalists in Brussels during a briefing on ‘’the political situation in Israel in te aftermath of the Gaza war,’’ organized by Europe Israel Press Assoiciation (EIPA).

He explained what are his motivations for creating the new party and his vision for the State of Israel.

‘’We are in a very traumatic situation. I can tell you personally and nationally.We all think about what happened in the last two and a half years. Everyone in Israel suffered and felt and actually lost someone or know someone that lost someone. Compared tot he population in  Israel, the number is much bigger than 9/11.’’

‘’On the 7th of October, I found myself as a 48 years old former politician in the middle of the war in Gaza. When I was young, I was in the Israeli Navy Seals for many years and I’m a colonel in the IDF as a reservist. This is part of my identity.’’

‘I took my uniform, I signed on a weapon and I went down to the south. I established a force, with guys in my age, former Navy Seals and other special units in Israel. As someone that was part of the government I couldn’t understand how it happened to us. How we found ourselves in a war because for my point of view we had a great intelligence. We knew exactly what’s happening in Gaza.’’

‘’I was very produd to see plenty Israelis who went down south to help, next to the big feeling of shame of what happened to us, to risk their lives in order to protect the state of Israel.’’ ‘’It took me a few days to understand that we were actually under exceptional threat for the state of Israel.’’

’There are plenty of reservist that criticize the government of Israel. They request  an investigating committee on what happened on October 7. They think that it’s impossible to contain so many days as reservisst in a normal country. They are CEOs of a startup companies or  principals in the high schools or  former ministers.’’ ‘’We will not be part of a coalition that doesn’t accept a state inquiry commission, ‘’ Hendel said, while pledging not to engage in political boycotts.

‘’We are not going to sit in any coalition if you are not delivering the bills that everyone in Israel should do something for the sake of Israel.National service or military service.If not, he will not accept he will not gain any subsidizing or any support from the state.’’

Hendel deplored that the political debate in view of the next elections will still be ‘’pro or anti Bibi.’’

‘’As long we are focusing on Netanyahu, we cannot speak about principles. We cannot speak about how we see our vision regarding the future of Israel. Where we want to go in Gaza, in Lebanon or  with the Ultra-Orthodox community or with other questions that are important for the common Israeli.”

‘’We are criticizing the government from the right. There are still 30% of Israelis that are looking  for something else, who  are very conservative regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are very liberal regarding church and state issues. They are very against this government.’’

He acknowledges that in Israel’s parliamentary system, you need to form a coalition with different parties. ‘’The small parties actually have more power than the biggest party.’’ ‘’I want tob e a kingmaker,’’ he says.

‘’I understood that we need to do whatever we can in order to make sure that we are strong enough.’’ ‘’It means that we need not only to think about a sophisticated and small army, one of the perceptions that we had before the war, but also to make sure that we have a strong and a wide manpower in the army in order to protect our borders, especially in a tiny country.’’

Hendel believes that two and a half years after,’’ ‘’we are in a  much better strategic situation’’. ‘’The self-confidence of the Iranians that they can do whatever they want in the Middle East has changed with the military strike in June. We didn’t finish the war. As long as the Iranians will have military capabilities, they will try to influence and to create instability in the Middle East and in other places .’’

‘’The fact that we have an ability to have our Air Force gain control on the skies in Iran, changed I think the perception of many, many players in the Middle East,’’ he said. ‘’Hezbollah is much more weaker. The ability of Israel to eliminate part of the Hezbollah as well as Nasrallah and other leaders, changed the reality in the north. We are are still in part of Gaza, still trying to do whatever we can in order to demilitarize the Strip. We have to make sure that we are not sleeping again. That we are not  standing in our borders waiting for someone to happen.’’

‘’In the army, the first lesson in the officer school is that always the line of protection will be violated by the enemy. So if you have only one one line of protection, someday someone will break it.’’ So we understand that we need to still hold control on some hills in Gaza to make sure that we control the ability of the terrorists take a decision on attacking Israel.’’

‘’We understand that we are one the front of a clash of civilizations, between two cultures. We see day by day all over the Middle East, a lack of education, a lot of poverty, lack of human rights. I know that many, many Europeans criticize Israel on many aspects, but Israel is not responsible for the fact that in Sudan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, I  can give you a list of Muslim states, where there are no women rights or gays rights or whatever. The only democratic state in the Middle East is Israel despite all the criticism and all the question people have.’’

For him, however, ‘’the Palestinians are the most advanced nation in rights and in education in the Middle East if you compare them to  Arabic countries.’’

‘’My perception as a party leader is that the only message that works in the Middle East, unfortunately, like in history, it’s power. At the moment that they understand that they cannot eliminate the state of Israel, they are willing to compromise on different ideological approaches. This is the reason why the Abraham Accords exist.’’

‘’So, after two and a half years, we are in a better position security when you analyze the abilities and capabilities of our enemies.’’

Hendel thinks that the two-state solution, advocated by Europe, ‘’is an utopic solution and not a realistic one.’’ ‘’People that speak about the two-state solution do not really understand the Palestinian society and the Israeli geography. It’s not about Israel, it’s about the fact that the Gazans are not affiliated with Judea and an Samaria. The PLO dislike Hamas and the Hamas dislike the PLO.They feel that they are two different nations. They are not willing to accept each other.’’

‘’So before before speaking about two-state solution, if you want a more pragmatic utopic idea, it’s the three-state solution.’’