Benjamin "Benny" Gantz (Hebrew: בִּנְיָמִין "בֵּנִי" גַּנְץ, pronounced [binjaˈmin ˈbeni ˈɡant͡s]; born 9 June 1959) is an Israeli politician and retired army general.

[3][4] 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.

He served as the mapainik (local representative of the Mapai party), a head of the moshav movement, and the community’s baal toke'a, blowing the shofar (ram's horn) on Rosh Hashana.

According to his father, Benny Gantz was not religious and chose not to serve as the baal toke'a and does not know the Gaavad (chief rabbi of a rabinnical court) of Komemiyut (a nearby town in the Negev), but continued in his father's Zionist beliefs serving in the military, and holds "close to his heart" the memory of the Holocaust which Benny stated was present, "there, in the experience of the house".

[23] In February 2011, following the government decision to promote Gantz to Chief of the General Staff, Attorney Avi'ad Vissuli of the Forum for the Land of Israel unsuccessfully petitioned to revoke the appointment.

He returned to the Paratroopers Brigade and served as a platoon leader and company commander, completed a course in the U.S. Army Special Forces, and fought in the First Lebanon War.

[31] In 1991, he commanded the commando unit that was on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 36 hours, securing the Operation Solomon airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

[37][38] In July 2011, Gantz appointed a special committee to address a controversy that had developed concerning mention of the word Elohim, "God", in the military Yizkor prayer.

Gantz was the chairman of the Fifth Dimension, a computer security and law enforcement technology company, which specialized in tracking via smartphone spyware.

[45][46] On 27 December 2018, Gantz formally established the Israel Resilience Party ("Hosen LeYisrael" in Hebrew), with the intention of running in the upcoming April 2019 election.

[47] In his first major political speech on 29 January 2019, Gantz pledged to strengthen Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank and said that Israel would never leave the Golan Heights.

"The Jordan Valley will be our border, but we won't let millions of Palestinians living beyond the fence to endanger our identity as a Jewish state," he said.

[48] In addition, Gantz helped formulate a unilateral separation plan for the Institute for National Security Studies calling for the unilateral creation of a contiguous Palestinian "entity" on 65% of the West Bank and a freeze on construction in settlements outside the major settlement blocs expected to be retained in a future peace agreement in order to stave off the perceived threat of a one-state solution, which the plan termed as being an existential threat to Israel, along with a nuclear Iran.

[49] On 17 February 2019, at the Munich Security Conference, Gantz enumerated the main challenges of the West as "extremist Iran, Islamic terror, and regional instability".

the alliance, named Blue and White, was formally announced on 21 February 2019. with Gantz and Lapid agreeing to rotate the position of prime minister with one another if elected.

[53] In the April 2019 election Gantz's Blue and White alliance platform included 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.

Before he could grant the mandate to another individual, potentially Gantz,[58] Netanyahu successfully pushed to dissolve the Knesset on 30 May, leading to new elections in September.

[74] Initially an attempt was made to form a minority government with external support from the Joint List, however this initiative promptly collapsed as Members of the Knesset from Gantz's Party, Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser announced they would vote against such a government, citing an electoral promise not to lean on the Joint List.

His nomination was supported by the Likud and members of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, which put the future of the Blue and White alliance in jeopardy.

[89] on 23 December, shortly after the expiration of a budgetary deadline, Gantz and Netanyahu's unity government collapsed, triggering new elections in March 2021.

[99] Following the collapse of the Blue and White's alliance with Telem and Yesh Atid, the party often polled at a single digit number of seats, narrowly surpassing, or falling beneath, the electoral threshold.

[100][101][102] in addition, several members of the party, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabi Ashkenazi, Minister of Justice Avi Nissenkorn,[103] Minister of Science, Technology and Space, Yizhar Shai, and Members of the Knesset Ram Shefa,[104] Einav Kabla,[105] and Hila Vazan[106] either retired from politics or defected to another party, while Members of the Knesset Miki Haimovich and Asaf Zamir were removed from the party list by Gantz after voting against a bill meant to delay the dissolution of the Knesset.

[107] in the last days of the election, Gantz ran a Gevald campaign, arguing that Blue and White falling beneath the electoral threshold would harm Israeli democracy.

[119] Lapid and Bennett formed a government with Ra'am, Meretz, the Labor Party, New Hope, Yisrael Beiteinu and Blue and White.

[125] In November 2021, Gantz became the first Israeli minister of defense to visit Morocco, where he signed an agreement for security cooperation with the Moroccan government.

[128] On 30 May 2022, following violence and racist remarks against Palestinians at the annual Dance of Flags, Gantz called for La Familia and Lehava to be designated as terrorist organizations.

[131] The alliance was joined by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and former Yamina MK Matan Kahana on 14 August, at which point it was renamed the National Unity Party.

[133] Gantz was replaced as defense minister by Yoav Gallant on 29 December[134] after an alliance of parties led by Netanyahu formed a new government.

[140] On 18 May, Gantz threatened to resign from the cabinet effective 8 June if it was unable to engage and adopt proposals for returning hostages, ending Hamas' rule, demilitarizing Gaza, establishing an international administration, normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, and widening military service.