Gantz’s Blue and White Faces New Blow as Departures Threaten Party’s Survival
By Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line
Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party is facing a deepening internal crisis, after another senior figure moved toward the exit and the party’s attempt to discipline departing lawmakers created a new political problem of its own.
The immediate dispute began after Chili Tropper and Orit Farkash-Hacohen announced they were leaving Gantz’s political framework. Gantz demanded that the two resign from the Knesset immediately, arguing that such a step was required after their departure. But the demand quickly exposed a complication: if departing lawmakers give up their seats, their replacements could come from the original list, including figures connected to Gideon Sa’ar, who later joined President Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
That could turn a crisis inside an opposition party into a parliamentary gain for the coalition.
Blue and White later said Gantz and Tropper had agreed that Tropper would remain in the current Knesset and not resign, in order “not to give another vote to the coalition.” The party said the concern was that an additional coalition vote could help advance the draft law and harm Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and Israeli society.
The decision highlights the trap now facing Gantz. Pressing lawmakers to resign may serve party discipline and protect Blue and White’s institutional position, but it could also alter the Knesset balance in favor of the government. Allowing them to remain avoids that immediate risk but leaves Gantz presiding over a faction whose members are increasingly moving away from him.
The crisis widened further when Eitan Ginzburg, a longtime Gantz ally and Blue and White’s secretary-general, met with Gantz and decided to leave the party. Blue and White said Gantz had summoned him after receiving information that he was holding contacts with other parties because of concern for his political and economic future.
Ginzburg framed the decision differently. In a long statement, he described the move as the end of a political chapter he had entered seven years ago, when Tropper invited him to join a new project led by Gantz. He praised Gantz personally, calling him courageous and upright, but said the current political framework had lost much of its ability to create change.
“Blue and White was a warm political home for me,” Ginzburg wrote, adding that he had believed in its ability to influence even during difficult periods. But, he said, “its ability, in its current form, to continue generating the change required in the country has diminished.”
That line cuts to the core of the crisis. Ginzburg is not presenting his departure as a break with Gantz personally, but as a judgment on the party’s usefulness. For a party that has repeatedly struggled in recent polls and often failed to cross the electoral threshold, that distinction may be even more damaging.
Blue and White’s decline has turned every departure into a question of survival. Once the main centrist vehicle challenging Netanyahu, the party is now fighting to preserve relevance while other figures in the anti-Netanyahu camp, including Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot, compete for political space ahead of the next election.
The loss of Eisenkot was particularly significant. As Gantz’s former number two and a former IDF chief of staff, Eisenkot gave Blue and White security credibility and political seriousness. His decision to break away and form Yashar pointed that the problem was not limited to polling numbers, but extended into the party’s senior ranks.
The deeper burden on Gantz is political memory. During the pandemic, he broke his alliance with Yair Lapid and joined a Netanyahu-led government. After the October 7 attacks, he again entered a government led by Netanyahu, this time as part of a wartime emergency arrangement. That move was presented as an act of national responsibility, but it ended without Gantz securing major changes in the government’s direction or composition.
Lapid, by contrast, had conditioned his support on replacing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Netanyahu rejected that offer by not addressing it. Gantz entered without those demands, leaving critics to argue that he gave Netanyahu legitimacy without forcing a meaningful political price.
Now, as Blue and White loses more of its remaining senior figures, Gantz’s dilemma is no longer only whether Tropper, Farkash-Hacohen, or Ginzburg should keep their seats. The larger question is whether Gantz still has a political home to offer them, or whether Blue and White has become a platform that its own members are trying to leave before the next election.
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