Gantz says rest of opposition harming chance of replacing government

Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz slams his fellow opposition party leaders for declining to sit with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and instead looking to establish “a narrow government” that “frightens” undecided voters.

“Anybody who thinks they can put up a sign calling for Likudniks to vote for them while simultaneously disqualifying the Likud party is harming the chance to replace the worst government in Israel’s history,” Gantz tells reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, referring to recent campaign messaging by Together chairman Naftali Bennett insisting that “real Likudniks vote Bennett.”

“There are many voters, some of whom voted Likud in the past, who are undecided, who look at what is happening here and want to see a broad, Zionist government after the elections that will fix things — not a narrow government that frightens them, and rightfully so,” he continues.

“Anyone who… claims they will pass [universal conscription] in a minority government relying on Arab parties is not telling the truth,” Gantz says. “Those competing over the leadership of the ‘bloc’ rather than the nature of the government that will be formed here are not offering an alternative.”

“The solution is not to establish a different extremist coalition,” he says.