Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz stated in an interview with Channel 12 News on Wednesday evening: “I will do everything to replace Netanyahu, but if people don’t come together, nothing will come of it."
“I never saved Netanyahu; I always saved the State of Israel," Gantz emphasized. “I am proud that I entered [the government] to save the State of Israel, and anyone telling me otherwise should ask themselves why they didn’t step up and join the emergency government during our hardest days."
He added, “I truly believe I represent something that 80 seats’ worth of voters want and need. They know they’re tired of this constant fighting - one extreme corrupts one side, the other extreme corrupts the other side, and Israel is lost in between. This has to stop, and I believe, hope, and will work to convince people."
Regarding the next government, he said: “I will do everything to ensure Netanyahu is not the Prime Minister of Israel. He needs to end his tenure, and in such a case, we will support a government of change. We repeat and stress - this government cannot be a narrow coalition dependent on Arab parties, because it won’t be able to accomplish anything. We already tried that, and it failed."
He responded to criticism over his participation in the emergency government: “I joined the emergency government at the start of the war without hesitation. I told myself it would be very easy to enter and very hard to leave. For two full months, I tried to persuade Netanyahu to change course, to act - faster in Khan Yunis, faster in Rafah, faster in the north, to prioritize the hostages. And I didn’t succeed. I approached him personally, in letters, in the media, in every way possible - and when I couldn’t succeed, I left. It was a mistake in the sense that the extremists were left at the wheel."
When asked whether he regrets not joining the government after the last elections, he replied: “I think that had we joined the government after the last elections, perhaps October 7 would not have happened. I can’t say anything definitive about that. These hindsight questions are fair in themselves, but they’re hard to answer."