Israeli PM Netanyahu’s rival talks of possible West Bank pullout

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s main rival in the upcoming April election has raised the possibility of pulling back from the occupied West Bank, saying his country should “find a way” to end its control over the Palestinians.

Benny Gantz, a former armed forces chief of staff, spoke positively of Israel’s 2005 pullout from the Gaza Strip in an interview published on Wednesday, his first since launching his election campaign last week.

The Gaza withdrawal had been “approved by the Israeli government and implemented by the army and settlers in a painful but good way,” he told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

“[One should] learn from it and apply it to other places,” he said, adding: “We need to find a way in which we’re not controlling other people.”

With peace talks frozen throughout most of Netanyahu’s decade-long rule, Gantz’s comments were welcomed by the Palestinians.

“It’s encouraging if he succeeds and he sticks to this opinion,” Nabil Abu Rdeneh, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters on Wednesday.

However, he said they needed more details about Gantz’s policies.

“We don’t know him yet, we heard about him. As President Abbas keeps saying: all that we need is an Israeli government which believes in peace.”

No details shared

Gantz did not explicitly mention the West Bank in his remarks and refrained from outlining conditions for any pullback from the Palestinian territory.

The 59-year-old launched his campaign on January 29 in a speech promising a conservative diplomatic and security policy.

He pledged to keep the strategic Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank under Israeli rule, along with the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and occupied East Jerusalem.

Although he did not say so in the interview, Gantz could support a withdrawal from wildcat outposts that are not approved by the Israeli authorities.

All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international laws, but Israel draws a distinction between those it sanctions and those it does not.

Successive peace plans proposed by Israel in the past provided a partial withdrawal from the West Bank and the maintenance of major settlement blocs in return for offering the Palestinians territory in the Negev desert between Gaza and the southern West Bank.

Expected to win more than 20 seats

Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party, which was formed in December, is expected to win between 21 and 24 seats in the 120-member parliament in the April 9 election, according to the latest opinion polls.

That would put it second only to Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party.

Gantz’s comments drew criticism from right-wing Israeli parties.  

“We told you Benny Gantz would form a leftist government with the help of MPs of the Arab-led Joint List who hold 13 seats in parliament,” a Likud spokesman said.

His remarks were also attacked by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads a newly-founded ultra-nationalist formation that favours the partial annexation of the West Bank.

“Gantz has thrown off the mask and overtaken Avi Gabbay (of the centre-left Labour party) … and wants to expel Jews from their homes through a unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria [the West Bank],” Bennett said.