‘Whoever said I’m in your bloc?’: Gantz distances himself from opposition amid poor polls

Responding to calls by fellow opposition party leaders to resign in light of his party’s inability to pass the electoral threshold in recent polls, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz asks where they got the impression that he is part of their bloc.

“I’m putting aside the question of the right to vote and be elected. And the democrats, and the liberals — whoever said I’m in your bloc? I mean, where did you sign me up? Where did I sign that I’m yours? I belong to the State of Israel,” Gantz tells attendees at a parlor meeting in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut in a recording broadcast by Channel 12.

Several opposition politicians — such as Yesh Atid’s Noam Tibon and his former number two, Gadi Eisenkot — have called on Gantz to resign due to his poll numbers, which indicate that if elections were held today, Blue and White would fail to enter the Knesset.

Eisenkot is part of the so-called change bloc of parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Honestly, I’m telling you, I’m doing everything so that Netanyahu will end his term,” Gantz tells the parlor meeting, adding that he does not want a repeat of the “change government” of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, which held a razor-thin majority of one seat in the Knesset.

“I’m not willing to make do with 61” seats, he says, arguing against calls by members of the change bloc to pass a constitution with only a slim parliamentary majority should they win the election.

“I answered him; What do you mean? We’ve just come out to demonstrations because they have 64” seats and tried to advance a judicial overhaul. “So you want to pass a constitution with 61? That’s not reasonable.”

Responding to Channel 12’s report, Blue and White tells the network that “our message is consistent. The best solution for Israel is a broad Zionist consensus government without extremists.”

Gantz hasn’t expressly stated that he won’t sit in a government led by Netanyahu.