Benny Gantz
Benjamin "Benny" Gantz is an Israeli politician and retired army general. He served as a minister without portfolio from 2023 to 2024, as the minister of defense between 2020 and 2022, and as deputy prime minister between 2021 and 2022. From 2020 to 2021, he was the alternate prime minister.
Standing...
Stories...
Aug 17, 2026
Lean Left
His National Unity party sits in opposition after the cabinet's assault on Ronen Bar and Gali Baharav-Miara.
Labor/Meretz distrust his history of joining Netanyahu after October 7 and demand that he stop hedging and commit to a united opposition slate.
Aug 17, 2026
Far Left
His National Unity party is split over its place in the war cabinet as the ceasefire deal stalls over conditions he helped author.
He is criticized for lending Netanyahu democratic cover and for a militarist agenda that avoids any challenge to settlement expansion.
Aug 17, 2026
Lean Left
The National Unity leader is sharpening his campaign against Netanyahu while hesitating to join a formal left-center alliance.
Center-left voters expect Gantz to help unseat Netanyahu, but Labor and Meretz fault his ambiguity on social policy and Palestinian rights.
Aug 17, 2026
Far Left
The National Unity head is positioning himself as the center-right bulwark against the Haredi draft bill and the coalition's legal purges.
Hadash sees Gantz as a false alternative, since his party has no quarrel with the war in Gaza and treats Palestinian rights as an external matter.
Aug 16, 2026
Lean Left
He is trying to position himself as a centrist alternative while distancing himself from the wartime cabinet's decisions.
Labor and Meretz remember his role in the Gaza operation and suspect his security talk is the same as the right, only quieter.
Aug 15, 2026
Lean Left
Gantz's National Unity party is mediating between the protest camp and the military establishment, but he refuses to join a Golan-Lapid primaries.
The left critiques Gantz as an arch-securitarian who lacks a social vision, but values his restraint against the far-right.
Aug 14, 2026
Center
Blue and White's leader is caught between a campaign against sitting with Netanyahu and a party that says its own lawmakers are kept in the dark.
Yesh Atid criticizes Gantz for repeating a centrist pattern of hesitation, making it harder to forge a credible anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Aug 14, 2026
Lean Left
Demands a state inquiry into the October 7 failures and attacks the coalition's handling of hostages.
Center-left critics appreciate his security credentials but want him to back the protest movement more forcefully, not just parliamentary maneuvers.
Aug 12, 2026
Lean Left
National Unity chairman is considered by the media a possible fallback prime minister in a post-Netanyahu scenario.
Labor/Meretz regard him as a warm alternative who shares coalition security assumptions but they see no peace agenda.
Aug 10, 2026
Lean Left
The former war cabinet minister keeps hinting that national emergency should outweigh the threat of Netanyahu's legal collapse.
The left condemns Gantz for enabling a far-right government by staying too long in coalition and legitimizing policies he once opposed.