Israel’s Gantz says PM’s era drawing to a close

ISRAELI OPPOSITION leader Benny Gantz has vowed to form a government that will include neither indicted prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor the predominantly Arab parties in Parliament.

In a series of TV interviews two weeks before national elections, Mr Gantz appeared confident that the March 2 vote will provide the decisive outcome that eluded two previous elections last year.

Mr Gantz’s Blue and White party is currently polling ahead of Mr Netanyahu’s Likud, although neither appears to have a clear path to a parliamentary majority required to form a government.

Mr Gantz said he was either going to partner with a broad range of “Jewish and democratic” parties, including the ultra-nationalist party led by apparent kingmaker Avigdor Lieberman.

Or he could team up with the ruling Likud Party, but only if it gets rid of long-time leader Mr Netanyahu, who is fending off criminal corruption charges.

“Netanyahu has ended his historic role from a political standpoint. The Likud with Bibi cannot form a government, and without Bibi there’s unity,” he said, referring to Mr Netanyahu by his nickname.

Mr Gantz, a former military chief, appears to have grown closer to Mr Lieberman, whose nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party has bolted from Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing camp and sparked the unprecedented stalemate in Israeli politics that led to the multiple repeat elections.

Both deny any pre-election alliance, but Mr Lieberman has all but ruled out sitting in government with his former mentor.

Mr Lieberman has demanded the removal of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that he says have wielded disproportionate power for too long and have backed Mr Netanyahu.

“The Netanyahu era is over,” Mr Lieberman said on Saturday, expressing a newfound openness to sitting in government with leftwing parties he once shunned.

Still, the numbers do not seem to add up without at least the tacit support of the Arab parties who are anathema to Mr Lieberman’s hard-line brand of politics.

Mr Netanyahu has linked Mr Gantz to the Joint List, an umbrella group of mostly Arab parties who represent the country’s 20 per cent minority, saying he has no option of forming a government without them.

Mr Gantz denied he will invite them into his government, and claims he will be strong enough to rule without their support.

Joint List leader Ayman Odeh says he will act to topple any government that includes Mr Lieberman, who has long railed against Arab politicians as a fifth column and as terrorist sympathisers.

And unlike the previous round, he says he will not recommend Mr Gantz as prime minister if he continues with an approach of “racism toward Arabs”.