Gantz to Netanyahu: Don’t choose the path of the zealots and lead Israel into the abyss

Minister Benny Gantz promises to give the people of Israel “a horizon of hope” and to restore Israel’s strength.”

He warns of the possibility of “long and harsh existential war — even harder than we have known to date.”

Gantz now challenges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly: “I am looking in your eyes tonight, and I say to you – the choice is in your hands.”

“After I spoke with you repeatedly, the moment of truth has arrived. The hour of decision has arrived.”

Gantz says he has known Netanyahu for years as “a leader and an Israeli patriot, who knows well what must be done.”

“The Netanyahu of a decade ago would have done it,” he says. “Can you do the right and patriotic thing today?”

Netanyahu, Gantz charges, must choose “between Zionism and cynicism, between unity and divisiveness, between responsibility and neglect, and between victory and disaster.”

Gantz says his party will be partners if Netanyahu chooses “the national interest over the personal” in the footsteps of Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Begin and Rabin.

“But if you choose the path of the zealots and lead the whole state into the abyss, we will be forced to leave the government,” he warns. “We will turn to the people and form a government that will win the trust of the people.”

Turning to the public, he implores them not to lose hope, though hard days are ahead. “We face challenges that we have not known since the War of Independence.”

“We are a strong nation,” he says. “The ones who survived Pharoah, Titus, and Hitler will survive Sinwar, Nasrallah, and Khamenei.”

And on Israel’s 100th anniversary of independence, he says, the story that will be told will be one of national revival.

Answering a question from a reporter after his prepared remarks, Gantz says he still supports advancing elections, currently due in 2026, to an agreed earlier date, in order to restore public trust in Israel’s leadership.