Gantz forms 100-day team to prepare first days in office

The team includes representatives from Yesh Atid, which merged with Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party to form the Blue and White Party last Thursday.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Benny Gantz, chairman of the Israel Resilience Party (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Benny Gantz, chairman of the Israel Resilience Party
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz formed a team to plan for his first 100 days as prime minister, sources in his Blue and White Party said on Wednesday, confirming a Channel 13 report.
The team, which will be headed by Blue and White Knesset candidate Chili Tropper, will prepare for the possibility that President Reuven Rivlin will ask Gantz to form the next government after the April 9 election.
“The team is working on plans for improving the day-to-day life of Israeli citizens in all walks of life,” a source in Blue and White said.
 
The team includes representatives from Yesh Atid, which merged with Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party to form the Blue and White Party last Thursday.
Tropper, who is in charge of all content for Gantz, will work on the team with Ofer Shelah and Yael German from Yesh Atid and Yoaz Hendel from former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem party, which merged with Israel Resilience in January.
Candidates with particular expertise in various fields will be in charge of the 100-day team. For instance, Orit Farkash-Hacohen, a former head of the Israel Electric Corporation, is heading the economic team, and Asaf Zamir, a former Tel Aviv deputy mayor, is heading the team of local authorities.
Meanwhile, a platform is being written for the party, with experts among the candidates writing certain sections of the platform. For instance, on matters of religion and state, the platform is being written by Tropper, and Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, who are liberal religious Zionists, and Hendel, who in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, said he is “sometimes religious.”
Such plans for a candidate's first 100 days in office are common to write. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a team write such a plan before he returned to office in 2009. Former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres also formed such teams before becoming prime minister.