Israeli party leader Benny Gantz drops out of race

JTA – Benny Gantz said on Monday he is dropping out of the race with just eight days to go until Israelis head to the polls to elect a new Parliament. 

Gantz, who is a former defense minister and Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, had once been the leading contender to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But in recent months, his party has been polling below the electoral threshold. 

In a statement to media, he said, “I will not run in the upcoming elections – I will continue to fight for unity. This is the only solution that will prevent another disaster and protect Israel against all challenges at home and abroad.” 

Gantz argued last month in an OpEd for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that unity among Zionist parties was critical in part to stop the erosion of support for Israel in the international arena. 

His Blue and White Party was considered to be one of the parties that could join either the right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu or the opposition bloc headed by Gadi Eisenkot of the Yashar Party. In the last election, Gantz and Eisenkot were in the same party. 

Gantz’s departure is expected to improve the vote count of bigger parties and could give a boost to the Eisenkot bloc. 

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionist Party, called on small parties in the Netanyahu-led bloc to follow Gantz’s example. 

Smotrich wrote on X that the opposition was now organised so that votes would not be lost to parties that fell below the threshold, while on the right, “there is a complete lack of responsibility”. 

He took aim in particular at the Amcha party led by Ofer Winter, which has been hovering at the threshold. Small right-wing parties, he said, are “endangering the State of Israel” by helping bring in a left-wing government. 

He called on Winter and “his friends to come to their senses” and on the “public not to vote for parties that will not with full certainty pass the threshold”. 

This is a developing story.