In TV interviews, Netanyahu and Gantz each insist the other is unfit to be PM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White party, ripped into each other on Saturday, each calling the other unfit to lead the country as Israelis head back to the polls on Monday for the third time in under a year.

Netanyahu called Gantz “weak” and “not a real leader” in an interview Saturday on Channel 12, which hosted all the party leaders on an evening show. Netanyahu focused heavily on a recording aired this week in which one of Gantz’s top advisers, Israel Bachar, questions his boss’s courage and competence. Gantz has since fired Bachar. The Likud leader said the tape proved Gantz’s unfitness to lead the country.

“What’s amazing is that this a testimony from the inside,” Netanyahu said, in which someone close to Gantz says he “is a danger to the state of Israel.” Bachar said in the recording that the refusal of Gantz, a former army chief, to permit a strike on Iran was “a danger to the people of Israel.”

Netanyahu said Gantz can’t form a coalition without the support of the Joint List and that such a government would be “dangerous” for Israel.” He further claimed that Blue and White voters who understand this were “coming over to the Likud.”

Netanyahu dismissed claims by six former Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs that he is not fit to be prime minister as motivated by their political ideology. “They are leftists,” he said curtly.

Another critic, the former Likud minister Beni Begin, “left Likud a long time ago.”

The prime minister also called Gantz a “mediocre” chief of staff — his “third choice” for the role — and said he now heads “a dictatorial party.”

Gantz, who appeared on the channel immediately before Netanyahu, addressed the recording, saying that Bachar “understands nothing of security” and did not have the authority to speak on Iran.

An angry Gantz said the recording and its contents were irrelevant and that Netanyahu was behaving “like a mafia man.”

The Blue and White head said the Israeli public was “ready for change” and the “time is now.”

“We will win these elections,” he said.

Gantz rejected the interviewer’s suggestion that Netanyahu seemed to be the more energetic, hard-working campaigner, saying he had given three dozen interviews in recent days, and was meeting with voters non-stop.

In his interview, Gantz also dismissed the notion, advanced by the Likud, that he stutters and is incoherent in interviews. “I don’t hear so well anymore,” he said, adding that this was the result of things exploding around him for over 35 years in the military. Calling the Likud’s attacks “the lowest of lows,” Gantz asked, “the prime minister now dares to mock people for such things?”

Gantz specified that he would not seek to build a coalition with the support of the mainly Arab Joint List and said he backed a unity government with Likud, but only without Netanyahu.

Asked if he would join a coalition under Netanyahu if this third round also failed to produce a clear winner, Gantz replied: “There is no situation in which I will sit under Netanyahu as prime minister when he has three charges against him.”

Netanyahu has been indicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust and his trial is set to open on March 17. The prime minister told Channel 12 Saturday that he would not advance any legislation, including the so-called “French law” or other parliamentary tools, to try to prevent his trial from going ahead. He also dismissed reports that he might seek a plea bargain.

“I have faith in the Israeli courts,” he said, adding that he would defeat the allegations in court. He further claimed that the state’s witnesses against him were “squeezed and extorted” into giving “false testimony,” and suggested that although he would not seek to fire Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, “he has done problematic things that need to be exposed.”

Later Saturday, both Gantz and Netanyahu were set to speak at final pre-election rallies in the Tel Aviv area.

Other party leaders also appeared on the news channel Saturday, which asked viewers to rate the politicians on “how convincing” they were in real-time by asking them to vote via the channel’s news app.

First up was Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir who accused Netanyahu and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Yamina alliance of right-wing parties, of not being “truly right-wing.”

While his far-right party will not clear the electoral threshold on Monday according to polls, Ben Gvir said he has no intention to drop out unless Netanyahu agrees to a long list of demands, including the immediate evacuation of the Bedouin hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar.

Netanyahu and his associates have worked for weeks to convince Ben Gvir to withdraw, worried about wasting right-wing votes. Ben Gvir claimed Saturday that he was offered all sorts of jobs, including an ambassador post, and even “money” to pull his far-right party out of the race.

Next was Labor-Gesher-Meretz chairman Amir Peretz, who ruled out joining a Netanyahu-led coalition and said the best bet going forward was to form a minority government to avoid a fourth round of elections. Peretz also reiterated that he’s agreed with Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz on guiding principles for a joint government.

The Labor-Gesher-Meretz chairman predicted Netanyahu would not reach a 61-seat bloc and dismissed the idea that Likud efforts to convince alliance member Orly Levy-Abekasis to jump ship and join a right-wing, religious coalition led by Netanyahu would bear fruit.

Joint List head Ayman Odeh, whom Peretz greeted with a handshake, appeared next on the news channel, predicting that his Arab-majority party would win 16 seats in the upcoming elections. Two polls Friday had the party at 14 and 15 seats.

Odeh said Israel’s Arab community would come out in droves to vote and “win against Netanyahu, against his way, and against racism.”

“If we get 16 seats, Netanyahu can’t set up a coalition,” Odeh said.

Odeh scoffed at efforts by Netanyahu in recent days to appeal to the Arab electorate, declaring that “no prime minister has incited more against us than Netanyahu.”

At the same time, Odeh did not rule out recommending Gantz for prime minister but said Gantz would have to “change direction” to regain the Joint List’s support. “Gantz has moved to the right” over the past month, he said.

If Gantz committed to bringing “peace and equality,” and made clear his opposition to the idea of unilateral annexation of West Bank areas, among other positions, the Joint List would back him, Odeh said. Most, but not all of the Joint List recommended Gantz as prime minister after September’s deadlocked elections.

Odeh had a tense exchange with Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman who appeared next on the channel on Saturday. Refusing to shake hands, Odeh called Liberman a “paper tiger who is worth nothing,” to which Liberman responded that he hoped that in the framework of a transfer of land in any agreement with the Palestinians, “we’ll get rid of Ayman Odeh.”

Earlier Saturday, Odeh told the Kan public broadcaster that his party would not allow the “racist” Liberman to become a minister.

“We will not make Lieberman, the brains behind the transfer idea, a minister,” Odeh said, referring to Liberman’s support for the idea of having the Arab Israeli towns in the so-called triangle be transferred to the future state of Palestine in a peace deal.

Odeh claimed that the only difference between Netanyahu and Liberman is that the latter is better at evading corruption charges.

In the Channel 12 interview, Liberman estimated that his party would win nine seats and said once again that there would not be a fourth round of elections.

Liberman said that there are 90 MKs who he’d be willing to sit in a coalition with after ruling out Netanyahu, the Joint List and the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism factions. Liberman declined to reveal how exactly such a coalition would look, but said other Likud MKs besides Netanyahu would be welcome.

Yisrael Beytenu has enjoyed the role of kingmaker in the previous two elections, but in both pushed for a Likud-Blue and Whit unity coalition that did not come to fruition.

Liberman said Saturday that Netanyahu “has lost control, and Gantz has not yet learned to lead.”