Eisenkot: Gantz should resign if Blue and White-National Unity party nears electoral threshold

By Sam Sokol 4 September 2025, 10:54 am

Edit

Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

L: MK Gadi Eisenkot attends a National Unity faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 26, 2025. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90); R: National Unity Party Leader MK Benny Gantz leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 5, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

If Blue and White-National Unity is around the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent then chairman Benny Gantz should step down, former party number two Gadi Eisenkot declares.

“If Gantz is around the threshold, he needs to resign,” the former MK tells Army Radio.

Eisenkot also says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame for the lack of hostage deal, rather than the far-right ministers in his cabinet.

The former IDF chief says that while military head Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir says that the conditions have been met for the hostages’ return, “the prime minister ignores and obstructs. It isn’t [far-right ministers] Ben Gvir and Smotrich, it’s [Netanyahu].”

In a statement, Blue and White-National Unity calls it “inconceivable” that Eisenkot “claims that Netanyahu is not making a hostage deal because of Ben Gvir and Smotrich — and instead of joining Gantz’s initiative for a time-limited government to bring back the hostages, continues to be preoccupied with polls and strategic consulting.”

“We suggest that Gadi stop focusing on polls — some of which show him not even passing the electoral threshold — and on elections that unfortunately have not yet been declared, and start dealing with what can be done today for the hostages, for the soldiers, for the country,” the party states.

Gantz last week called on Netanyahu and fellow opposition leaders to establish a temporary emergency government tasked with securing the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas and drafting Haredi young men — a proposal that was met with derision from the opposition.

Israeli leaders yesterday dismissed a statement from Hamas declaring its willingness to free all the hostages in an exchange for ending the war in Gaza. Zamir has urged the government to accept a deal to reach a ceasefire that will see the hostages released.

Eisenkot, who was No. 2 in Blue and White, quit both the faction and Knesset over the summer, stating that while he and Gantz worked together for many years and respect each other, their differences eventually drove them apart politically.