Benny Gantz partnered with Yair Lapid and Benjamin Netanyahu teamed up with the “David Dukes” of Israeli politics as Israeli parties joined forces ahead of the deadline to find running partners for the April elections. Jonathan Ofir explains where things stand now: “Gantz and Lapid, with their accompanying generals, may possibly succeed in unseating Netanyahu – but they will not unseat Zionist ultra-nationalism. They are running on that ticket too.”
The merger of centrists Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid in a joint party to take on Netanyahu in the April election has sparked “euphoria” for liberal Zionists who dream of ending the Netanyahu regime. Dubbed a new Labor Party, the merger gained strength from Netanyahu’s deal with a racist party that angered many American Jewish groups.
Israeli premier contender Benny Gantz has chided Prime Minister Netanyahu for lobbying to include the ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party in a future coalition, but in doing so, Gantz incited against the BALAD Palestinian-Israeli party which promotes democracy. The former army chief of staff equated the two.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been working hard to make sure a racist, xenophobic, homophobic Ultra-Right wing party called “Jewish Power” that has roots in the banned “Kach” party gets into the next Knesset in the April 9 election so that he can maintain a right-wing coalition and stay in office, Barak Ravid reports.
Once again, Likud Party in Israel applies anti-Palestinian race-baiting campaigns in favor of Netanyahu, framing the rival Benny Gantz as enabling a treason. But both sides compete on the “Israel-first” notion.
Only democracy in the Middle East? Eleven villages, which are home to some 40,000 Palestinian Bedouins who have Israeli citizenship, currently have no polling stations or public transportation to reach existing stations for the upcoming Israeli elections.
Yossi Gurvitz explains what to expect from the upcoming Israeli elections, where Benjamin Netanyahu faces a challenge from Gen. Benny Gantz, but liberal parties do not stand a chance. “Gantz is right on at least one point: there is no longer left or right. The vast majority of Israeli Jews are now Jewish supremacists,” Gurvitz says. “Some embrace this supremacy eagerly, others cling to it while bemoaning cruel fate has brought them, good liberals that they are, to this low state.”
Like Israel’s former politician generals, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, Benny Gantz is being portrayed – and portraying himself – as a battle-hardened warrior, able to make peace from a position of strength. Gantz’s campaign slogans “Only the Strong Wins” and “Israel Before Everything” are telling. Everything, for Gantz, clearly includes human rights.
Former Israeli Chief of Staff Benjamin (‘Benny’) Gantz has launched his campaign to challenge Netanayhu from the ‘left’, with an incredibly bellicose series of videos. His slogan is “Israel before everything”. Gantz brags in campaign videos of his responsibility for Gaza onslaughts in 2012 and 2014.
It has been a whirlwind of a week in Israeli politics as the country’s Israeli election campaign is moves full speed ahead following a call for elections this April.