Wooing of ex-IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi's place in politics intensifies

Sources close to Ashkenazi have confirmed that he would be more likely to enter politics if it would cause Yesh Atid and Israel Resilience to run together.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Updated: FEBRUARY 4, 2019 13:58
Gabi Ashkenazi at JPost Annual Conference (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Gabi Ashkenazi at JPost Annual Conference
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Yesh Atid and the Israel Resilience Party have intensified their tug-of-war over former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who must make a decision soon about whether to enter politics.
Ashkenazi was hosted on Shabbat by Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern at his home in the national religious community of Hoshaya in the Jezreel Valley Regional Council. Stern said they are friends, and it was not necessarily a sign of Ashkenazi’s political future.
Sources close to Ashkenazi have confirmed that he would be more likely to enter politics if it would cause Yesh Atid and Israel Resilience to run together.
Israel Resilience Party head Benny Gantz met Sunday night with Ashkenazi and, according to Channel 12, gave him many options, including being the party’s number two and supporting the party from outside politics without running for Knesset.
Gantz met with his current number two, fellow former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon on Sunday and discussed which political bonds their joint list should seek. Besides the Yesh Atid and Ashkenazi possibilities, Israel Resilience could merge with MK Orly Levy-Abecassis’s Gesher and the new Achi Israeli party of former OC Human Resources head Gideon Sheffer and Haredi Women’s College founder Adina Bar-Shalom.
Sources in Gantz’s party would not confirm a Channel 12 report that if there are multiple mergers, the list headed by Gantz would run under a new name in the April 9 election.
Israel Resilience is expected to reveal a handful of its key Knesset candidates soon after Tuesday’s Likud primary in order to contrast the quality of the two parties’ candidates.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid used the Likud primary on Sunday to remind voters of the controversial primaries bill, sponsored by coalition chairman David Amsalem, that the outgoing Knesset passed into law. The law gives incumbent MKs NIS 300,000 for their campaigns.
“Each of the Likud Knesset Members received a gift from you: A check for 300,000 shekels,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. “They passed a law in the last Knesset even though we did everything to prevent it. They called it the “Primaries Law” but the real name should have been the ‘spending money for Likud Knesset Members’ Law”.
Lapid said the money would go to vote contractors, for people close to politicians or for “a brother-in-law’s sister who suddenly receives a salary as a strategic advisor.” He promised to get the law canceled if his party wins the April 9 election.
“They have no shame,” Lapid said. “So when they say it’s a celebration of democracy, remember that you’re paying for the party. It’s your money. It’s the taxes you paid.”