Former military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz fired the opening shot of his election campaign with a video that's making the rounds on social media and turning the tables on the right wing’s attacks. It features Likud ministers Miri Regev and Yariv Levin as well as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the New Right denigrating his views and his record. Their litany is drowned out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s voice chanting “They are a-f-r-a-i-d,” the famous taunt he directed at the liberal media when he was drumming up voter support for his run in the 1999 elections. Gantz is now using Netanyahu’s catchy cadence to mock the right’s hysterical reaction to his rising star in Israeli politics.
True, this is the nature of politics. Each party lauds its candidates and presents its rivals’ weaknesses and failures. In Gantz’ case, however, the right will stop at nothing, not even at distorting and rewriting history, to discredit him.
His critics ramped up their attacks against Gantz on Jan. 14, when he came out of his house to greet members of Israel’s Druze protesting the controversial 2018 nationality law. The protesters, led by Brig. Gen. Amal Assad, argue that by granting Jews the sole right to self-determination in Israel, the law discriminates against minorities. “I will do everything in my power to fix the nationality law,” Gantz said in his first public political statement. Referring to the fact that the Druze (unlike Israel’s Arab minority) serve in the military, Gantz added, “We have a deep and unbreakable connection, not only in battle, but also in life.”
Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan was first to attack, citing the October 2000 shooting death of an Israeli Druze soldier at Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank. As the divisional commander, Erdan tweeted, Gantz was part of a group of officers “that turned its back on him and did not do everything in its power to save his life.” Former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter was right behind Erdan on Twitter. “The cloud of Madhat Yusuf, an IDF fighter from the Druze community who bled to death at Joseph’s Tomb, hangs over Gantz’ head,” he wrote. Dichter neglected to mention that he himself, as head of the Shin Bet at the time, was in charge of contacts with Palestinian security head Jibril Rajoub, who had promised to evacuate the Israeli soldier to safety.
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