Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party confronts an escalating organizational emergency as additional high-ranking officials signal their departure, while efforts to maintain party unity have generated fresh political complications.
The current turmoil erupted when Chili Tropper and Orit Farkash-Hacohen declared their intention to abandon Gantz’s political organization. Gantz insisted both politicians should vacate their Knesset positions without delay, contending this action was necessary following their exit. However, this requirement revealed an unexpected problem: when departing members surrender their parliamentary seats, their successors might emerge from the original candidate roster, potentially including individuals linked to Gideon Sa’ar, who subsequently aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration.
This scenario could transform an opposition party’s internal struggle into a legislative advantage for the governing coalition.
Blue and White subsequently announced that Gantz and Tropper reached an understanding for Tropper to maintain his current Knesset position rather than step down, specifically to avoid providing “another vote to the coalition.” The party expressed worry that an additional coalition supporter could facilitate passage of draft legislation that might damage Israel Defense Forces personnel and Israeli society.
This resolution underscores the difficult position now confronting Gantz. Compelling legislators to step down might preserve party authority and safeguard Blue and White’s organizational standing, yet it could simultaneously shift the Knesset’s power balance toward the government. Permitting them to stay prevents that immediate danger but leaves Gantz overseeing a group whose participants are progressively distancing themselves from his leadership.
The situation deteriorated when Eitan Ginzburg, a long-standing Gantz supporter and Blue and White’s secretary-general, met with Gantz and chose to exit the organization. Blue and White stated that Gantz had called him in after learning he was conducting discussions with alternative parties due to concerns about his political and financial prospects.
Ginzburg presented the choice through a different lens. In an extensive public statement, he characterized the move as concluding a political period he had begun seven years earlier, when Tropper recruited him to participate in a fresh initiative headed by Gantz. He commended Gantz individually, describing him as brave and honorable, yet stated the existing political structure had lost significant capacity to generate transformation.
“Blue and White was a warm political home for me,” Ginzburg stated, noting that he had maintained faith in its potential to make an impact even during challenging times. However, he added, “its ability, in its current form, to continue generating the change required in the country has diminished.”
This assessment strikes at the heart of the emergency. Ginzburg is not framing his exit as a personal rupture with Gantz, but rather as an evaluation of the party’s effectiveness. For an organization that has consistently performed poorly in recent surveys and frequently failed to meet the minimum vote threshold, this interpretation may prove even more harmful.
Blue and White’s deterioration has transformed each departure into an existential concern. Previously the primary centrist alternative to Netanyahu, the party now battles to maintain significance while other anti-Netanyahu figures, including Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot, vie for political territory before the upcoming election.
Eisenkot’s departure proved especially damaging. As Gantz’s former deputy and a previous IDF chief of staff, Eisenkot provided Blue and White with defense expertise and political gravitas. His choice to separate and establish Yashar demonstrated that the difficulties extended beyond polling data into the party’s leadership circle.
Gantz faces an additional burden from political history. During the pandemic, he dissolved his partnership with Yair Lapid and joined a Netanyahu-headed government. Following the October 7 attacks, he once again participated in a Netanyahu-led administration, this time through an emergency wartime agreement. While presented as an act of national duty, this arrangement concluded without Gantz achieving substantial modifications in the government’s policies or personnel.
Lapid, in contrast, had made his participation conditional on removing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Netanyahu dismissed this proposal by ignoring it. Gantz joined without making similar demands, prompting detractors to contend he provided Netanyahu with credibility without extracting a significant political concession.
Currently, as Blue and White continues losing its remaining senior leadership, Gantz’s challenge extends beyond determining whether Tropper, Farkash-Hacohen, or Ginzburg should retain their positions. The fundamental question is whether Gantz maintains a viable political organization to present to them, or if Blue and White has transformed into a platform that its own participants are attempting to abandon before the next electoral contest.
