Coronavirus crisis escalates bickering between Netanyahu, Gantz

Blue and White Chairman Benny Gantz, who is Israel's alternate prime minister and defense minister, hoped that the series of interviews he gave to the country's three main TV stations July 15, from isolation in his home in Rosh HaAyin, would ameliorate his public relations failure — if only partially.

The interviews were prerecorded and supposed to be broadcast on prime-time evening TV, with the goal of creating a buzz. Gantz came prepared with a page of messages to the public and two headlines: One addressed the possibility that Israel would renew a countrywide lockdown, in light of the daily escalation in the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. The second headline involved Gantz’s insistence on a two-year budget, as opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who seeks a one-year budget. This last difference of opinion could, in an unlikely scenario, even lead to elections.

But while Gantz was preparing for his important interviews, Netanyahu and Finance Minister Israel Katz were busy putting the finishing touches on another whirlwind economic plan to be presented during a press conference. Netanyahu intended to take over the public agenda that day, just as Gantz was readying himself to do the same.

Over the last few days, Netanyahu has had to deal with a rising wave of protests and demonstrations; he needed an immediate “fix” to calm down the masses. The previous night, on July 14, a stormy demonstration had taken place opposite Netanyahu’s house on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street, which ended with dozens of arrests and a sense of loss of control. Similar to the decision of US President Donald Trump to dispense money to the public at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, Netanyahu decided on an immediate dispensation of grants to all the country’s citizens.