Former military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz fired the opening shot of his election campaign with a video that's making the rounds on social media and turning the tables on the right wing’s attacks. It features Likud ministers Miri Regev and Yariv Levin as well as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the New Right denigrating his views and his record. Their litany is drowned out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s voice chanting “They are a-f-r-a-i-d,” the famous taunt he directed at the liberal media when he was drumming up voter support for his run in the 1999 elections. Gantz is now using Netanyahu’s catchy cadence to mock the right’s hysterical reaction to his rising star in Israeli politics.
True, this is the nature of politics. Each party lauds its candidates and presents its rivals’ weaknesses and failures. In Gantz’ case, however, the right will stop at nothing, not even at distorting and rewriting history, to discredit him.