Launching campaign, Barak blitzes Gantz for ‘giving in’ to Netanyahu

Launching the Democratic Camp’s campaign, former prime minister Ehud Barak goes on the attack against Blue and White head Benny Gantz a day after the latter appeared to leave open the possibility of a rotation government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Barak says the comment was not a mistake or a case of bad hearing, as Gantz claimed after a similar comment earlier this month, but “the truth leaking out.”

“This is giving in from the start, without a fight, on the central goal of these fateful elections: saving Israeli democracy via a change in government,” he says, according to the Ynet news site. “Will the government formed after elections be a xerox of the Netanyahu government, paralyzed, sodden with fear and victimization, full of incitement and sectoralism, that sees only [enemies] on the outside and traitors within?”

A poster at the campaign launch puts right-wing leaders on one side under the heading “this is cowardice” and Democratic Camp leaders under “this is courage.” Gantz’s face is split between the two.

Blue and White shoots back that “we won’t take political advice from Barak, who could teach a course on crawling to Netanyahu governments.”

In 2011, Barak split Labor into two separate factions in order to remain as defense minister in Netanyahu’s government.