Benny Gantz

He served in the army from 1977 to 2015, the last four years as Chief of the General Staff, and leads the centrist Blue and White party. He was Alternate Prime Minister and Defence Minister from 2020 to 2022 and sat in the war cabinet until 2024. He is named in the race for Prime Minister of Israel in the 2026 election.

Career

Gantz was drafted in 1977 and served until 2015, commanding the Paratroopers Brigade and the Northern Command before serving as the 20th Chief of the General Staff from 2011 to 2015. He entered politics with Blue and White, which won 35 seats in 2019 and 8 seats in 2021. He was Speaker of the Knesset in 2020, Alternate Prime Minister from 2020 to 2021, Defence Minister from 2020 to 2022, Justice Minister in 2021 and Deputy Prime Minister until December 2022. Leading National Unity, he won 12 seats in 2022 and joined the war cabinet in October 2023 before leaving it in June 2024.

Positions

Wikipedia describes his ideology as centrist to centre-right: he supports keeping the West Bank settlement blocs, opposes Palestinian statehood and stresses security. In a September 2026 interview, the Times of Israel reports, he presented himself as a unifier of the Zionist camp, rejecting reliance on ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions or on Arab parties. He criticises Benjamin Netanyahu continuing as Prime Minister but has not ruled out sitting in a government he leads.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · The Times of Israel

Photo: U.S. Department of State, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)