Opposition parties have accused Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party of anti-Arab racism, hypocrisy and desperate maneuvering following a series of video ads the party released Tuesday that stated that a government coalition should not include Arab parties or far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who leads the Otzma Yehudit party.

The campaign has garnered intense criticism from both Arab parties and left-wing Zionist opposition parties for targeting Mansour Abbas’s Islamist party Ra’am and equating it with Ben Gvir. Meanwhile, Gantz’s support in opinion polls has collapsed.

In one video ad, a family is seen watching in horror with the wail of rocket sirens in the background as the cancellation of a security cabinet meeting is announced due to the refusal of government ministers from Ra’am to participate in wartime, and in the second, a family again watches in horror as Ben Gvir is appointed defense minister.

“The security of our children comes before everything; we do not rely on Arab parties,” the first ad says.

Accompanying the ad, the party wrote in a post on X: “Fateful decisions regarding the security of the State of Israel cannot be made by a narrow government that relies on Arab votes. The State of Israel needs a broad, Zionist consensus government, without Ben Gvir and without Ra’am.”

Gantz has previously stated that he would not sit in a government that includes Arab parties or that includes the far-right minister.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accused Gantz of hypocrisy on Wednesday over the campaign, noting that Gantz had served as defense minister in the previous government, which included Ra’am as a coalition member.

“I launched an operation in Gaza as prime minister while Ra’am was in the coalition,” the Yesh Atid party head said on Wednesday in an interview with Army Radio.

“Gantz was defense minister, so he knows that these claims aren’t real,” he continued, adding that Blue and White’s new ad campaign “only serves [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

Gantz served as defense minister in a short-lived government led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Lapid in 2021-2022, which counted the Islamist Ra’am party among its slim 61-seat majority.

However, the Gaza operation mentioned by Lapid was launched during the transition........

© The Times of Israel