Two agents from Shin Beth, the Israeli internal security service, have been escorting General Benny Gantz since Sunday March 8 in public outings. Parliament extended the security of the main opponent to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, taking online death threats against him seriously, a week after the legislative elections on March 2. The Netanyahu Likud came out on top of this ballot, the third in a year. But he does not yet have a majority of government. This blockage provokes harsh convulsions in the Israeli political body.
"The incitement to violence has passed all limits. If we don't wake up, the next political murder is around the corner ”said Gantz on Saturday shortly after a man threw himself on him as he was about to step into the gallery.
Denouncing " the silence " of Netanyahu in the face of these threats, the former army chief of staff dared to make direct reference to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a nationalist religious activist. "I will not allow you to sow fear, he said to his rival. I will not allow you to provoke the first civil war in modern Israeli history to get your ticket out of court ”, while the trial for corruption, fraud and breach of trust of Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to begin on March 17.
Mr. Gantz seeks to stem the feeling of defeat that crossed his movement, Bleu Blanc, in the aftermath of the legislative elections of March 2, where he won three seats less than the Likud. Recalling that a disparate and disunited opposition to Mr. Netanyahu still obtained a majority of the votes (62 seats out of 120, according to results not yet final), he assured that he could form a government, which would force him to seek the support for the Knesset of the United Arab List (15 seats). "I will do everything in my power to prevent a fourth election", he promised, calling on President Réouven Rivlin to appoint him by March 17 to conduct these negotiations.
For Mr. Netanyahu, this assurance is a denial of democracy. "They are trying to steal the election"he said shortly before Gantz at a last-minute rally in Tel Aviv. The Prime Minister denounces a bill, raised by his opposition, which would prohibit an accused official from serving as Prime Minister. Such a text, tailor-made to remove it from power, would be difficult to pass urgently, in a Parliament just elected and heated to white. Mr. Netanyahu believes he would go "Against the most basic principles of democracy". Pending the final results of the ballot, his party sows doubt by denouncing delays, silences "Strange" and possible errors on the part of the electoral commission.
