BENNY GANTZ spent 37 years of his life climbing the ranks of the Israel Defence Forces to the top. As a politician he still likes to speak in military idioms. One of his favourites is to “go under the stretcher”, which refers to the idea that everyone must share the weight of the national burden. He has often used the term to describe his decisions to join, twice, in times of emergency, governments led by Binyamin Netanyahu.
The first was in 2020, when Mr Gantz, as leader of a large centrist alliance, broke an election promise not to serve under Mr Netanyahu and joined him in a unity government during the covid-19 pandemic. That partnership lasted only seven months before relations between the two politicians irrevocably broke down.