In a rare public statement on issues of the day, former IDF chief of staff and chairman of the new Israel Resilience Party Benny Gantz offers a taste of what his version of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement might look like, saying in an interview that settlements like the Etzion Bloc, Ariel, Ofra and Elkana “will forever remain” part of Israel.
The comments are made in a preview of a Hadashot TV news interview to be aired in full this evening. The short clip includes highlights from a one-on-one conversation in which Gantz says despite some of the criticism he has faced, he does not feel that he is threatening anyone.
“Though it’s possible that people are feeling threatened,” he says.
The former IDF chief says that what most concerns him about the current state of Israeli society “is its fragmentation, its radicalization.”
“Not necessarily (between) right-left, which is not our big story here, but more (of a radicalization) one against the other,” he explains in the interview, which was filmed in February 2018.
— Jacob Magid
Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz speaks at the annual World Zionist Conference in Jerusalem on November 2, 2017. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
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