The centrist Gantz offers to negotiate a great coalition with the Netanyahu party
The president of Israel entrusts the former government to form after the resignation of the prime minister. Solemn and martial, the head of the Army that led the Gaza war in 2014 has accepted on Wednesday afternoon the arduous task of forming a government in Israel. At 60, former general Benny Gantz, head of the list of the Blue and White centrist alliance (the colors of the Israeli flag), has four weeks to try to forge an agreement that joins a majority in the Kneset (Parliament of 120 seats) . His first token movement will take place on Sunday, with an attempt to agree on a Grand Coalition Executive with the Likud, the conservative party led by the acting Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.The veteran president threw in the towel on Monday, the day he turned 70. He resigned to form Cabinet before the verification of the political blockade derived from the results of the elections of September, summoned in repetition of the inconclusive legislative ones celebrated in April.
While Netanyahu was separated from the race for power for the first time in a decade, during which he chained four victories at the polls, the president of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, reminded Gantz that “there is no reason to justify the celebration of some third elections ”. If the centrist leader fails in the attempt to form a "government of liberal unity," which he said he aspired to in his acceptance speech, the Israelis may be forced to return to the polls again between the months of February and March of the year that comes. "Politicians should not erode people's confidence," said Rivlin, a former leader of the moderate sector of Likud facing Netanyahu.
Neither the right-wing bloc, headed by the Likud, nor the center-left, which leads Blue and White, reach a majority of 61 votes in the Kneset. Governance is in the hands of Israel Our House, the conservative secular party of former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who defends a National Unity Executive.
With the presidential mandate to Gantz to form a Government, Israel renews the tradition of participation in politics of former military leaders. Among the generals who preceded him at the head of the Armed Forces are Isaac Rabin and Ehud Barak, who served as prime minister. "I am not a politician and public speaking is not my thing, but I am a leader," he acknowledged during the legislative campaign. "Netanyahu is not an eternal king and his Government only produces division among citizens," was one of his main electoral messages to a polarized society after three consecutive terms of the Likud leader.
The son of immigrants fleeing the Holocaust in Eastern Europe - his own mother was detained in a Nazi concentration camp - he was raised on a collective farm and, after studying at a Jewish seminary. He joined the paratrooper corps in 1977. He has a degree in History from the University of Tel Aviv and a postgraduate degree in Political Science from the Haifa campus, Gantz is not a warrior to use. A raid on diplomacy as a military attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington preceded its entry into politics.
His party, Blue and White, has warned that he will not accept Netanyahu's presence in a large coalition if he is finally charged by the attorney general on three charges of fraud and bribery. Gantz, the chief of the General Staff who five years ago led a war that resulted in 2,200 dead Gazatis (two-thirds of them civilians) in front of 73 Israelis (mostly military) and caused widespread devastation in the Strip, often defending the resumption of the negotiations with the Palestinians with this thesis: "I am not ashamed to pronounce the word peace."
https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/10/23/actualidad/1571857767_427736.html
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