Blue and White challenges Bibi

AIPAC slams Netanyahu for alliance with far-right party.

By MARK WEISS
Moshe Ya’alon, Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Gabi Ashkenazi announce the formation of their joint party, Blue and White, in Tel Aviv on February 21st, 2019 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Moshe Ya’alon, Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid and Gabi Ashkenazi announce the formation of their joint party, Blue and White, in Tel Aviv on February 21st, 2019
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The last-minute decision by Israel’s two main centrist parties to form a joint list, Blue and White, brought into sharp focus the central issue of the April election: for or against Bibi Netanyahu.
The first polls after the merger between Benny Gantz’s Israel Resilience and Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, showed a tight contest can be expected in the last stretch of the campaign, and more drama may be in store as we await the decision by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who is expected to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges.
A poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on February 24 showed a dead heat between the blocs with 48 seats each for the right-wing and center-left blocs, with 12 seats each for the Haredi and Arab parties.
TV polls showed a gap of from three to 10 seats for Blue and White over Likud.
The polls also showed Labor slipping back down to single digits and either United Torah Judaism or the joint Arab list of Ta’al-Hadash emerging as the third biggest party.
Gantz, in a speech launching the new alliance, said that Blue and White would change the face of Israel politics. He admitted the decision to unite had not been easy.
 “We each have an ego; we each have an agenda. But when we saw our country being torn to shreds, we put our egos aside; we formed a different agenda,” Gantz said. “Something went wrong in the past decade. An evil wind is blowing through our streets. It’s a government that divides and rules. We’re here to say, ‘enough.’ Instead of division, we want unity. Instead of extremism, we want dignity. Instead of fraction, we propose national reconciliation.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response that the choice was now clearer than ever: a strong right-wing government headed by him, or a weak left-wing government headed by Gantz and Lapid, which would rely on a blocking majority of Arab parties.
Blue and White will be headed by Israel’s former top general Benny Gantz, who set up his Israel Resilience Party a few months ago. Yair Lapid, chair of Yesh Atid, agreed to take the No. 2 spot on the list after weeks of arduous negotiations, where egos were as much of an obstacle as policy.
Under the merger deal, if Blue and White is tasked with forming the next government, Gantz and Lapid will take turns serving as prime minister, with Gantz filling the role for the first the first 2½ years.
Another former top general, Gabi Ashkenazi, was a key mediator. Courted by both men, he told them he would only enter politics if they agreed to unite in a joint list that could mount a serious challenge to Netanyahu.
Ashkenazi joined the list in the No. 4 slot. He is a popular figure and is seen, critically, as a personality who could potentially shift votes from the right-religious bloc to the center.
A third top general, Moshe Ya’alon, who also served as defense minister under Netanyahu, had already merged his right-leaning Telem party with Gantz’s list, and is No. 3 on the slate.
With three senior ex-military figures in its top four slots, Blue and White is being dubbed the “generals’ party” with security credentials second to none.
The new party lacks clear policy guidelines and Yair Lapid even claimed during the merger talks that the reluctance of Benny Gantz to state his position on key issues was a major obstacle holding up a union.
The party leaders also disagree ostensibly on whether or not they could sit in a Netanyahu-led coalition if the prime minister is indicted pending a hearing – a process that could take a year or more. Lapid and Ya’alon have ruled out such a scenario: Gantz remains uncommitted.
The merger in the political center came the morning after as the right-wing Bayit Yehudi-National Union, under intense pressure from Netanyahu, formed an alliance with Otzma Yehudit in an effort to save right-wing votes from being wasted on parties which may not pass the minimum four-seat threshold.
Otzma Yehudit is an extreme right-wing party founded and filled by disciples of the assassinated US-born rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was disqualified as racist in the 1980s.
The parties described the union as a “technical bloc” whereby Bayit Yehudi and National Union will remain a joint faction, and Otzma will operate independently. Otzma took the fifth and eighth places on the list and Netanyahu promised the alliance two plum portfolios if the right forms the next government, probably the education and housing ministries.
“They want to bring Kahanists into the next government,” Ya’alon said. “Is this what we wanted? For Kahanists, whose banner is ‘Death to Arabs’ to lead Israel? Why is Netanyahu doing this? For political survival.”
Netanyahu’s decision to court Otzma Yehudit was also condemned by prominent Jewish organizations abroad that usually refrain from commenting on domestic Israeli politics.
The American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) noted that for years they had been careful “not to meet members of this racist and despicable party.” The American Jewish Committee said earlier that the “views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State of Israel.”
It concluded, “AJC reaffirms our commitment to Israel’s democratic and Jewish character, which we hope will be the ultimate winners in every election cycle.”
Netanyahu, without mentioning AIPAC or AJC, criticized what he termed the “hypocrisy and double standards” of the left.
 “They’re condemning a right-wing majority bloc with right-wing parties, while the left acted to bring extreme Islamists into the Knesset to create a majority bloc.”
The outcome of the April election may still depend on which of the smaller parties manage to pass the threshold and enter the Knesset, having a potentially decisive effect on the size of the blocs. In recent elections dominated by two large parties, voters have tended to shift at the last minute from smaller and medium-sized parties to one of the big two as the election date draws near.
According to different polls, Bayit Yehudi and Shas with five seats each, and Meretz, Kulanu and Yisrael Beytenu, each with a projected four seats, are all fighting for their political survival. Gesher, headed by Orly Levy-Abekasis was polling beneath the 3.25 percent threshold.
Fearing the worst, Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg, at the last minute, urged Labor to form a united left-wing party in response to the emergence of Blue and White. Labor leader Avi Gabbay, who has always opposed a merger with Meretz, rejected the overture, arguing that Meretz would pass the threshold and there was no indication that such a move would increase the overall number of seats for the two parties.
Two figures, who had been among the keenest advocates of a grand alliance in order to defeat Netanyahu, were eventually left out in the cold.
Former prime minister Ehud Barak welcomed the formation of Blue and White, but was not asked to join the list.
Tzipi Livni, whose Hatnua faction was unceremoniously booted out of the Zionist Union by Avi Gabbay in January, tried and failed to forge a united anti-Netanyahu front in which she herself would play a prominent role.
With polls showing Hatnua receiving only about half a percent in the polls she decided to quit the race.
“These past years have been hard for me and for the things I believed in,” she declared, holding back tears. “Peace became a dirty word, and democracy is in danger.”