Israel Resilience party head and former army chief of staff Benny Gantz was hammered by right-wing political leaders after implying that the “lessons” learned from the Gaza Strip disengagement should be “implemented in other places.” The comments are being construed as evidence of a willingness on Gantz’s part to uproot Jewish communities from the West Bank in the event of a future peace deal with the Palestinians. Notably, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the remarks, saying “it is encouraging if he succeeds and sticks to this opinion.” The decision in 2005 to withdraw every Israeli civilian and soldier from Gaza is probably the second-most contentious initiative in Israel’s modern history after the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, which recognized as a legitimate political actor Yassir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. Critics of the Gaza move highlight that the Palestinian enclave immediately became a launching pad for rockets targeting Israel and two years later was conquered by Hamas in an internecine war against Abbas’ Fatah faction. Since then, the Israeli military has conducted three large-scale operations in the Hamas-ruled territory, the most recent being the 50-day conflict in mid-2014. By contrast, proponents of the disengagement hold that it enabled Jerusalem to relinquish control over approximately 1.8 million Gazans whose formal incorporation into Israel would have threatened the country’s Jewish majority. The proposed handover to Abbas’ regime of security control over the entire West Bank—which by most accounts would necessitate removing tens of thousands of Israelis living therein—is even more divisive, with many arguing this would result in a Hamas takeover of areas adjacent to critical Israeli infrastructure and major population centers. While Gantz has to date remained relatively mum on policy, his party is predicted to win up to 23 seats in the next parliament, trailing only Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud which is polling at around 30 mandates. According to reports, Gantz is weighing the possibility of forming an alliance with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, a bloc that surveys show could win up to 35 seats and therefore potentially have the first opportunity to form the next government.
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