Sep 18, 2026 · 35 min · 13 segments
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Lazar Focus. Each Friday, join host diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe. Benny Gantz was in the…
Benny GantzGuest
Lazar BermanHost
I guess let's just start with the politics and then we'll get to some of the bigger questions, if something's bigger than politics.
We have a whole range of political parties that are registered, 38 political parties.
Why should the Israeli voters that are listening to us right now vote for you and the Blue and White Party?
Well, we look at the challenges that Israel is facing right now and in the foreseeable future, I would say, whether those are security issues, whether those are economical issues, internal issues, judicial issues, educational issues.
No matter what you take, any serious issue that you can think of, it cannot be resolved unless we have a cross-isle unity Zionist government.
Once we don't have it, nothing is possible, and we will be jumping from one election to another, from one election to another.
What do we expect? To have a draft law being orchestrated and supported by a non-Zionist Arab parties? Is that so? Do you really think we can have the same law with the ultra-Orthodox parties? Is that so? Should we finish, can we finish the challenges inside Gaza? We have 40% of the area hasn't been taken care yet.
Mm-hmm.
Um, Likud was trying to do the reform with 64 seats and we rejected it in the streets and elsewhere.
Can we do it with 61 or less? Can we constitute a constitution as if Lieberman is suggesting with 61 votes? They didn't succeed reforming 64 votes.
How can we reach serious issue unless we don't have a majority Zionist element doing it? Now, when the country was founded, it was founded by Zionists from both sides of the aisle.
It was agreed by the ultra-Orthodox, it was agreed by the Israeli Arabs, but it was led by a cross-isle Zionist element or government.
I'm the only one who suggests something which is different, but mostly it is very important.
I guess let's just start with the politics and then we'll get to some of the bigger questions, if something's bigger than politics.
We have a whole range of political parties that are registered, 38 political parties.
Why should the Israeli voters that are listening to us right now vote for you and the Blue and White Party?
Well, we look at the challenges that Israel is facing right now and in the foreseeable future, I would say, whether those are security issues, whether those are economical issues, internal issues, judicial issues, educational issues.
No matter what you take, any serious issue that you can think of, it cannot be resolved unless we have a cross-isle unity Zionist government.
Once we don't have it, nothing is possible, and we will be jumping from one election to another, from one election to another.
What do we expect? To have a draft law being orchestrated and supported by a non-Zionist Arab parties? Is that so? Do you really think we can have the same law with the ultra-Orthodox parties? Is that so? Should we finish, can we finish the challenges inside Gaza? We have 40% of the area hasn't been taken care yet.
Mm-hmm.
Um, Likud was trying to do the reform with 64 seats and we rejected it in the streets and elsewhere.
Can we do it with 61 or less? Can we constitute a constitution as if Lieberman is suggesting with 61 votes? They didn't succeed reforming 64 votes.
How can we reach serious issue unless we don't have a majority Zionist element doing it? Now, when the country was founded, it was founded by Zionists from both sides of the aisle.
It was agreed by the ultra-Orthodox, it was agreed by the Israeli Arabs, but it was led by a cross-isle Zionist element or government.
I'm the only one who suggests something which is different, but mostly it is very important.
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