“I grew up on stories about the heroic pursuits of terrorists in the Valley,” Blue and White leader Benny Gantz tweeted following the highly publicized July 31 visit of his party leadership to the Jordan Valley. These days, Gantz is in pursuit of right-wing voters ahead of the Sept. 17 elections, declaring during his Jordan Valley tour that under any future agreement with the Palestinians, Israel would retain control of the strategically important, inseparable part of the country. A few days later, on Aug. 6, Gantz showed up in the Gaza border communities vowing “action to take down Hamas leaders” if necessary. With these comments, Gantz is trampling the principles that his party presented to the Israeli public, eroding his support for the two-state solution and undermining what little hope the Palestinians have of ending the Israeli occupation.

Let's imagine that Prime Minister Gantz “takes down” the Hamas leadership. Who will he “put up” instead to run the Gaza Strip? An Israeli military administration? Does Gantz perhaps hope that Egypt will embrace the 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza? The only hope is for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to return to the enclave, but no levelheaded Palestinian leader would let Israel off the hook and deal himself with the deep crisis in the Gaza Strip unless Israel comes to an accommodation with the Palestinians on the future of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The three generals at the helm of Blue and White — Gantz, Moshe Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi — are well aware of this.

Comments by Gantz in April 2016 at a conference of the Institute for National Security Studies attest to the fact. “It is important to reach a diplomatic agreement with the Palestinians, otherwise we will keep sinking into this quagmire,” Gantz said. “Even if we do not succeed, we have to try. We may have to keep living by our sword, but at least we will be able to tell our children that we really tried.”

Ashkenazi, Gantz’s predecessor as military chief of staff and currently a Blue and White Knesset member, has made similar comments. In a September 2012 conference of the financial newspaper Calcalist, Ashkenazi said, “We must make every effort to reach a solution with the Palestinians even if someone has a problem with the partner,” calling on Israel to “make the two-state idea official” because it is essential for the state.