Blue and White Party’s Benny Gantz quits Knesset race

(Oct. 20, 2026 / JNS)

Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz announced on Monday night that he was dropping out of the Oct. 27 Knesset election. Gantz conceded that he “did not succeed in convincing enough of the people of our path.”

“I am still convinced that our path is the right one—the need for a Zionist, cross-bloc unity government is greater than any person or party, and it is the only solution in the face of the challenges, the dangers and also the opportunities facing the people of Israel,” Gantz wrote on X.

He urged leaders across the political spectrum: “Don’t return us to Oct. 7.”

If they fail to change course, he warned, “the people will continue to be torn apart, and we will reach repeat elections or, God forbid, disaster.”

Gantz said he knew that his decision to join a wartime emergency government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre could carry “a heavy political price.”

“I always was, and forever will be, a soldier of Israel, before everything,” Gantz wrote.

Gantz, the 20th chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, served as the Israeli military’s top commander from 2011 to 2015 and held a series of senior positions during his 38-year military career.

As chief of staff, Gantz led the IDF during Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), Operation Brother’s Keeper (2014) and Operation Protective Edge (2014).

The founder of the Blue and White Party, Gantz ended more than a year of political deadlock following the March 2020 elections by joining a unity government with Likud, later serving as alternate prime minister and defense minister.

Following the Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7, Gantz joined the emergency government, serving as a minister without portfolio and member of the War Cabinet until June 2024.