Benny Gantz, leader of the new “Israel Resilience” party, is positioning himself to be Washington’s favorite candidate to lead the State of Israel.
In what can best be understood as a message to the United States and Europe, Gantz used an interview in Yediot Aḥronot last week to defend the Oslo Accords and Gaza Disengagement plan, saying that the lessons of these American-imposed policies should be applied again.
Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff running on a joint ticket with another former chief of staff and defense minister Moshe Yaalon, appears to be the most potent political threat to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) in the upcoming Israeli elections.
In an interview published by Yediot last Wednesday and, Gantz was pressed on Yaalon’s opposition to the Oslo Accords and Disengagement.
In response, the former general defended both.
“The central question is a security question. We need to ensure the State of Israel’s security,” he said.
“Now, we have here a question of interests – and even Bibi [Netanyahu] said this at his Bar Ilan address [in 2009] – that we don’t want to rule over anyone else. We need to find a way for us not to be governing other people.”
“The Disengagement was carried out based on the State of Israel’s policy concerns,” he continued.
“All the sides involved received high scores for the ability to not tear the country apart when [the Disengagement] was carried out… We need to take the lessons and apply them elsewhere.”
Following Gantz’s comments praising the forced expulsion of nearly 10,000 Jews from the Gaza region and northern West Bank, his party released a statement playing down the former general’s support for the policy.
In the statement, the party said it would oppose future “unilateral decisions” on destroying Jewish communities.
The political game Gantz is playing should be clear to anyone paying close attention.
By publicly praising policies that have been destructive for Israelis and Palestinians while conforming to American and European interests in the Middle East, the former general is presenting himself to Western governments and media outlets as the candidate the international community should favor in Israel’s upcoming elections.
Even US President Donald Trump, who has until now been perceived as having a good working relationship with Netanyahu, knows that he will eventually need to press Netanyahu hard in order to push through his secretive new two-state plan to partition the country in half.
Having a more willing Gantz heading Israel’s government could give Trump’s Middle East team a more compliant Israeli leadership to work with.
Gantz’s party is currently polling higher than any political faction other than the ruling Likud, and public support from the international community could very well convince more Israelis to give the former general their vote.
And by softening Gantz’s words in a public statement, his party alleviates the concerns of many of the uneducated voters comprising Israel’s political center by creating the impression that the former general won’t be irresponsible with Israel’s national interests and security needs.
