‘Evacuate the settlements’

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biggest challenger has expressed support for evacuating Israeli settlements in his first interview since announcing his candidacy for elections in April.

“We need to find a way in which we are not controlling other people,” Benny Gantz said, while maintaining that security was Israel’s primary concern.

Gantz praised the way Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

“It was accepted by the Israeli government and carried out by the Israel Defence Forces and the settlers in a painful but good way. We have to take the lessons and implement them in other places,” he said.

The subject of the Gaza disengagement is divisive in Israel. The Islamist Hamas movement seized sole control of the enclave a year later and rocket attacks against Israel intensified in the years that followed.

The pull-out of Gaza was unilateral, but Gantz’s party clarified after the interview that “in a Gantz government there will not be unilateral moves with regard to the evacuation of settlements”.

Gantz is a former army chief of staff and the chairman of the Israel Resilience Party, which was launched in December.

In recent polls, he has emerged as the only candidate with a chance of beating Netanyahu in the April election – though the latter still appears to be well in the lead.

Right-wing politicians have been quick to brand Gantz a “leftist,” which has become an insult in Israeli society.

Responding to his interview, Netanyahu’s Likud party said: “We told you: Gantz will form a leftist government with the help of a bloc that will rely on (Ahmad) Tibi and the Joint List,” referring to a prominent Arab leader and an alliance of Arab parties.