Do we like them?

Do we like Benny Gantz?

Our score: 6 out of 10. A record that leans decent, with a real LGBTQ+ win and a break with Netanyahu, held back by a contested campaign and a hard-line war career.

Gantz grew up in Kfar Ahim, a farming community founded by Holocaust survivors, and his mother had survived Bergen-Belsen. He spent about 37 years in the army, starting in the paratroopers, was the last Israeli soldier out of Lebanon in 2000, and reached the top job of chief of staff when the candidates ahead of him were tainted by scandal.

He entered politics as the man to beat Netanyahu, and fought inconclusive elections in 2019 and 2020. Then he joined Netanyahu's government as alternate prime minister, a deal that collapsed before the handover. After 7 October 2023 he joined the emergency war cabinet, and he quit in June 2024.

That exit is his best political moment. He said Netanyahu was making “total victory impossible” and argued that the return of the hostages should come above political survival. Where you land depends on whether you see that as a principled break or as a politician leaving a sinking ship, but he did walk away from power.

The recent chapter is a sad one for a man who once led the polls. Several allies left, including Gadi Eisenkot, who went off to run his own party. Gantz said he had “not been able to convince enough of the people, and the responsibility is mine”. He then urged a unity government of both blocs and thanked opposition figures who backed his decision, and the opposition thanked him in return.

On the good-person test, there is no proven pattern of mistreating anyone. In February 2020 Israel's Justice Ministry announced a criminal investigation into a failed start-up linked to him. The statement did not say whether he was a suspect, and he denied wrongdoing, calling it “political pressure”. We didn't find how it ended, so we can't say more.

So where does that leave a family that cares about LGBTQ+ people and the planet? He is a centrist who has done something concrete for same-sex families and who put the country ahead of Netanyahu's survival. He is also a soldier-turned-politician whose campaign leaned on fear of an Arab party, and whose war record divides people. Mostly yes, but read the asterisk.