The most amusing story in Benny Gantz’s new book, We, concerns his meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the COVID-19 pandemic. Netanyahu was hysterical, Gantz claims. You couldn’t hand him a document; you had to put it down on the table, and Netanyahu would pick it up by the edge of the page. Once, Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi arrived for a meeting about a unity government, but they weren’t allowed into Netanyahu’s home. They were left outside to bake in the heat. Eventually Netanyahu came out, heavily made up and wearing a suit. And apparently hungry, because he polished off an entire bag of “Tapuchips” that they had bought at a nearby supermarket.
There aren’t many people who should be angrier at Netanyahu than Gantz. Netanyahu orchestrated vicious attacks against him, both above and below the belt, deceived him, and robbed him of the premiership. Despite all this, Gantz’s response in his book is relatively restrained; perhaps what he experienced does not sit comfortably with his current vision of a unity government with Netanyahu and without extremists (Netanyahu does not strike him as an extremist).
The most interesting part of the book is the number of times Gantz beats himself up over past mistakes: he was wrong to deliver his “anemone speech” at the end of Operation Protective Edge; he regrets launching the “secular unity government” campaign in 2019; he was wrong to leave Netanyahu’s government during the war, and even more wrong not to try to join the government after the most recent elections.
Gantz does write that it is doubtful Netanyahu would even have wanted him, Yair Lapid, and Avigdor Lieberman in place of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, but this is a somewhat manipulative understatement.
Gantz knows perfectly well that Netanyahu would never have agreed to it. He paid enormous political prices and never tried to flirt with the other side, not even as a way of lowering the price of his coalition partners.
It is impossible not to appreciate Gantz’s struggle to remain relevant. For at least six months, he hasn’t appeared in a single poll; his closest allies are leaving him; the media turned its back on him long ago — and yet he keeps fighting. Gantz appeared on television on Uvda, revealed his wife’s tragic illness, published a book, is putting out “young” videos, and continues to consider seemingly bizarre alliances (Dadi Shamhai?) in an effort to cross the electoral threshold.
Yet while the “Anyone But Bibi” camp is busy being furious with Gantz, Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot have so far managed to fly under the radar. Even though both refuse to commit to not forming a government with Netanyahu. They seemingly have legitimate excuses: this is the way to bring over disappointed Netanyahu voters; or the argument that if Netanyahu really does have 61 members of Knesset, it would be better for us to join than to have another Ben-Gvir–Smotrich government. That makes sense, but right now Netanyahu is nowhere near 61, so it is not actually on the table.
Statements by politicians before elections have limited value. Nevertheless, the two candidates from the anti-Netanyahu camp for prime minister are failing to answer one fundamental question: If the election results are similar to the polling results, what would they prefer? A government relying on Ra’am, or a unity government with Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox parties?
It would not be an exaggeration to assume that, if such a government could be formed with Netanyahu not serving as prime minister but controlling the Likud ministers from outside, somewhat like what Aryeh Deri has done during this term, they would prefer that over the terrible “disaster” of bringing Ra’am into the coalition.
There would be no less leadership-like move than that. After all, both of them believe precisely the opposite, but for now they are afraid of the public’s reaction. In that scenario, Lieberman would presumably make his entry conditional on keeping the ultra-Orthodox parties out, and the only person who would prefer the sensible option would be Yair Golan.