Gantz makes play for Israeli premiership with party merger
The merger between Blue and White and New Hope might offer Benny Gantz a shot at becoming prime minister after the Nov. 1 elections.
The unsurprising July 10 announcement of the merger between the Blue and White party of Defense Minister Benny Gantz and the New Hope party of Justice Minister Gideon Saar ahead of the Nov. 1 elections has not changed the balance of power between opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponents, but it does redraw the lines of the bitter battle being waged over the identity of the Jewish State.
The merger takes Gantz from head of a party with single-digit polling figures into a strong candidate for the country’s premiership.
This new alliance will turn the election from a two-pronged race between opposition head Benjamin Netanyahu and caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid into a trilateral competition. Now, rather than two blocs running for the Knesset — Netanyahu’s Likud, the ultra-Orthodox parties and the radical right against left-center-Arab parties — the new constellation pits the Netanyahu bloc against a center-left-Arab bloc and a security-oriented centrist one.
This could be good news for Netanyahu’s opponents.
