{"id":575801,"date":"2026-08-05T18:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/575801\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T18:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:56:11","slug":"mk-dan-ilouz-joins-yisrael-beytenu-following-departure-from-likud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/575801\/","title":{"rendered":"MK Dan Ilouz joins Yisrael Beytenu following departure from Likud"},"content":{"rendered":"

MK Dan Illouz<\/a> announced on Wednesday that he was joining Yisrael Beytenu and endorsing party chairman MK Avigdor Liberman<\/a> for prime minister, after recently leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s Likud Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetanyahu has failed in leading the country, and he must take responsibility and go home,\u201d Illouz stated.<\/p>\n

Sharply criticizing the Likud, Illouz said the party had become \u201ca subcontractor\u201d for haredi<\/a> (ultra-Orthodox) party leaders MK Arye Deri (Shas) and MK Yitzhak Goldknopf (United Torah Judaism).<\/p>\n

Illouz has been a vocal critic of the contentious haredi-backed legislation advanced by Netanyahu\u2019s coalition, which critics argued would encourage draft evasion amid the IDF\u2019s severe manpower shortage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He left Likud last month, saying he could not remain a member of a party he could no longer bring himself to vote for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call on all Likud voters: Anyone who wants a genuine right-wing party should vote for Yisrael Beytenu,\u201d Illouz said.<\/p>\n

Yisrael Beytenu is a core party in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu in the upcoming elections. It holds a hardline stance regarding haredi conscription to the IDF.<\/p>\n

The party also holds a hawkish security stance and advocates for expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It strongly advocates for a separation of religion and state.<\/p>\n

Illouz immigrated to Israel from Canada and entered the Knesset as a member of Likud in 2023. Throughout the government\u2019s term, he had been a vocal critic in the Knesset\u2019s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee against the coalition\u2019s contentious legislation being advanced dealing with haredi conscription.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this Knesset term, I led the fight against the draft exemption bill together with the MKs of Yisrael Beytenu,\u201d Illouz stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am joining Yisrael Beytenu because it is the party that today represents the national and liberal values in which I believe,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvigdor Liberman is a strong, experienced, and consistent leader who always stands by his principles, even when doing so comes at a political cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberman welcomed Illouz\u2019s addition, stating that he is a \u201cprincipled public servant who has demonstrated courage, integrity, and a willingness to pay a personal price in order to stand by his convictions, foremost among them the fight against the draft exemption bill and the demand for equality in sharing the national burden.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis decision to join us is a significant boost to the Zionist, national, and liberal camp,\u201d Liberman added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MK Dan Illouz announced on Wednesday that he was joining Yisrael Beytenu and endorsing party chairman MK Avigdor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24405,85,46,58195,14406,21141,43,238,110220],"class_list":["post-575801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-avigdor-liberman","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-knesset","tag-likud","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-yisrael-beytenu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}