Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s toughest rival in Israel’s April ballot, former military chief and political enigma Benny Gantz, will set out his goals on Tuesday in a marker of the center-left opposition’s prospects, Reuters reported.
Polls predict a Netanyahu reelection, with his right-wing Likud party taking around 30 of parliament’s 120 seats, and Gantz’s Resilience party coming a distant second with around 15.
That would line Gantz up to join a future Netanyahu-led coalition government - unless the ex-general tries to mobilize like-minded factions against the incumbent, now in his fourth term.
Much depends on the ideology of Gantz’s newly formed party. On this he has so far been silent. His campaign, meanwhile, has stoked his residual popularity from his term as top general with graphic ads claiming hundreds of enemy deaths in two Gaza wars.
At a launch party on Tuesday Gantz was due to deliver his first political speech, while according to Reuters, voters were watching for combustible policy points like Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, frozen since 2014, or corruption allegations dogging Netanyahu.
Tamar Hermann, a scholar with the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute, predicted Gantz would try to stay “very vague on certain topics: for instance ‘yes to peace but Israel’s security comes first’”.
For Netanyahu to be defeated, Hermann said - as reported by Reuters, "Gantz would have to bring together disparate center-left parties".
“Anything can happen, but at the moment the most likely outcome of the election would be a (Netanyahu-led) center-right government,” she said.
As the election approaches, and facing possible indictment, Netanyahu has highlighted his handling of national security, publicly acknowledging Israeli air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria.
