Nadene Goldfoot
Justice Minister and leader of the New Hope party Gideon Sa'ar and Defense Minister and leader of the Blue and White party Benny Gantz have decided to join forces and run as a single ticket in the upcoming election. According to the latest polls, a joint run could bring them more than double the votes than if they were each to run separately. Both leaders have said they would not join a Netanyahu led government under any circumstances.
Sa'ar has stated that he is opposed to a two-state solution, arguing "There is no two-state solution; there is at most a two-state slogan," and that it would be "a mistake to return to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria as a solution to the conflict." He has expressed support for a long-term solution involving Jordan. He supported annexation of the West Bank, and supported the idea of Palestinian autonomy in a federation with Jordan.
In December 2020, Sa'ar announced that he would leave Likud and will form his own party, called New Hope. He submitted his Knesset resignation on 9 December, which went into effect on 11 December. The party contested the 2021 Israeli legislative election, with the intent of forming a governing coalition, and removing Netanyahu from office. He regained his seat in the Knesset, as New Hope gained six seats at the elections.
Gideon Moshe Serchensky (later Sa'ar) was born in Tel Aviv. His mother Bruriah is a Mizrahi-Bukharan Jew who is the 7th generation of her family in Israel. His father Shmuel is an Ashkenazi Jew, a doctor, who was born in Ukraine and moved to Argentina as a child before immigrating to Israel.
After serving in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence NCO in the Golani Brigade, Sa'ar studied political science at Tel Aviv University and then went on to study law at the same institution. In May 2013, Sa'ar married Israeli news anchor Geula Even, with whom he has two children, David and Shira. Geula was born to Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union. Sa'ar has another two children, Alona and Daniela, from his first wife Shelly, as well as one grandchild.
Benjamin Gantz (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין "בֵּנִי" גַּנְץ, Transliterated: Binyāmīn "Bēnī" Ganṣ; born 9 June 1959) is an Israeli politician and retired army general serving as the minister of Defense since 2020 and deputy prime minister of Israel since 2021. He previously served as the alternate prime minister of Israel from 2020 to 2021.
He served as the 20th chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from 2011 to 2015. In December 2018, he entered politics by establishing a new political party named Israel Resilience. The party later allied itself with Telem and Yesh Atid to form Blue and White (Hebrew: Kaḥol Lavan), the colours of the Israeli national flag. Gantz's Blue and White alliance platform includes introducing prime ministerial term limits, barring indicted politicians from serving in the Knesset, amending the nation-state law to include Israeli minorities, limiting the power of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel over marriages, investing in early education, expanding health care, and re-entering negotiations with the Palestinian Authority for a peace agreement.
Benjamin Gantz was born in Kfar Ahim, Israel, in 1959. His mother Malka was a Holocaust survivor, originally from Mezőkovácsháza, Hungary. His father Nahum came from Sovata, Székely Land, Romania, and was arrested by the British authorities for trying to enter Palestine illegally, before reaching Israel. His parents were among the founders of Moshav Kfar Ahim, a cooperative agricultural community in south-central Israel. In his youth, he attended the Shafir High School in Merkaz Shapira, and boarding school at the HaKfar HaYarok youth village in Ramat HaSharon.
Despite agreeing to take part in a Netanyahu-led coalition government in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gantz would again express opposition to Netanyahu's annexation plans. On 29 June 2020, Gantz said the Israeli Prime Minister should instead put the COVID-19 pandemic first. on December 23rd, shortly after the expiration of a budgetary deadline, Gantz and Netanyahu's unity government collapsed. triggering new elections in March of 2021.
In October of 2021, Gantz announced that six Palestinian human rights organizations would be designated as terrorist organizations. The Ministry of Defense claimed that the groups are connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and that funding is being funneled from the groups to the PFLP. As of April 2022, Israel has not publicly released any evidence of such a link. It's been only 3 months.
In November of 2021, Gantz became the first Israeli Minister of Defense to visit Morocco, where he signed an agreement for security cooperation with the Moroccan government. He similarly signed a defense memorandum with the Government of Bahrain, and they are now part of the Abrahamic Accords.
On 30 May 2022, following violence and racist remarks against Palestinians in the annual Dance of Flags, Gantz called for La Familia and Lehava to be designated as terrorist organizations.
Gantz is a graduate of the IDF Command and Staff College and the National Security College. He holds a bachelor's degree in history from Tel Aviv University, a master's degree in political science from the University of Haifa, and an additional master's degree in National Resources Management from the National Defense University in the United States. Gantz is married to Revital, with whom he has four children. He lives in Rosh HaAyin.
Both men were born in Israel and are fathers of 4 children. The
concept of double tickets has stuck for another go-around.
Benny Gantz is 7 years and 6 months older than Gideon Sa'ar.
Resource:
Israel AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Sa%27ar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Gantz
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