Israel’s national election is becoming particularly vicious and personal as campaigning enters its final week, highlighting how the battle for the prime ministership remains closely contested.
With a small advantage in polls showing he can build a majority coalition after next Tuesday’s election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched an offensive against Benny Gantz, a former general whose centrist coalition poses a stiff challenge.
In the past week, Mr Netanyahu has accused his opponent of being mentally unfit to be defence minister, let alone prime minister. The Prime Minister’s Likud party has said Mr Gantz has “lost it”, running a series of ads that use gaffes by the first-time politician to create a picture of a man unfit for office.
One ad features Mr Gantz repeating the words “totally stable” over and over, as the frame zooms in on his bulging eyes while scratchy, high-pitched string music from Psycho plays.
The attacks mark a reversal in Mr Netanyahu’s tone about Mr Gantz, who served the Prime Minister as chief of staff of the Israeli military in 2011 and was once a key security ally.
Mr Gantz emerged as Mr Netanyahu’s toughest challenger after the Prime Minister called for a new election in December, cobbling together a coalition called Blue and White of former military commanders and centre-left factions. Polls show that Blue and White could win more seats than Likud but that the Prime Minister’s right-wing allies would gain enough to give him a majority.
Read the article by Felicia Schwartz in The Australian (from The Wall Street Journal).