Labor starts anti-Gantz campaign

“We want Gantz to be prime minister, but if Labor isn’t strong, he will run to Netanyahu,” opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich said in a statement.

By GIL HOFFMAN
The Labor party announces the results of the primaries February 11, 2019 (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)
The Labor party announces the results of the primaries February 11, 2019
(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)
The Labor Party joined Likud on Tuesday in efforts to harm Blue and White leader Benny Gantz ahead of the April 9 election, after Blue and White took away hundreds of thousands of Labor voters.
Labor renewed its former campaign that accused Gantz of wanting to join a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It had ended the campaign when Gantz declared he would not join a Netanyahu-led government, but restarted it on Tuesday, after Channel 13 revealed a tape in which Gantz said he had closed the door on joining a coalition headed by Netanyahu but did not lock it.
“We want Gantz to be prime minister, but if Labor isn’t strong, he will run to Netanyahu,” opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich said in a statement she delivered to a room full of Labor campaign staff at the party’s Tel Aviv headquarters, which was falsely billed as a press conference.
Yacimovich said that ironically, voting for Labor could help Gantz become prime minister more than voting for Blue and White.
“We won’t let it happen that they take votes of people who believe in our path and give them to Netanyahu, because that would be delusional,” she said.
Blue and White candidate and former Labor member Alon Shuster was taped on Monday saying that his party should try to take away more votes from Labor and leave it with four seats. This upset Yacimovich, who is fifth on the list.
“He wants to replace his friends with people who were put on a list by an ad agency,” she complained.
Labor leader Avi Gabbay, who quit Netanyahu’s current government over a controversial natural gas deal, claimed he would not join the next one if it is formed by Netanyahu.
“We promise, and we have proven ourselves before,” Gabbay told the room full of his employees. “Blue and White takes votes of our camp – of millions of people who want to replace Netanyahu – and gives them to him on a silver platter. [Blue and White’s Yair] Lapid did that in 2013. The tapes of [Monday] prove that they can do it again.”