By COLlive reporter
Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White party, was tasked by President Reuven Rivlin to form Israel’s next government and avoid a third national election cycle.
But if you saw him on Tuesday, he wouldn’t have known he had such a heavy responsibility and a deadline of 28 days on his shoulders.
The former IDF chief of staff came to the Chassidic village of Kfar Chabad for the annual Hakafot Shniyot, the celebration with Torahs that takes place as Jews in the diaspora mark Simchas Torah. (Israel’s Shmini Atzeres and Simchas Torah is a single day).
Gantz, who was raised in a religious upbringing and who spent Yom Kippur at the Chabad center near his residence in Rosh Ha’ayin, joined Jews of all backgrounds in the celebration.
Standing alongside him were Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Education Minister Rafi Peretz, both members of rival parties who Gantz will try to court into the government he will try to form.
A day after dancing in Kfar Chabad, Gantz met with Rivlin to receive the chance to become prime minister after the incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu failed to do so.
“I accept the mandate from the president with great appreciation. With modesty and lowering my head, I accept this responsibility,” said Gantz.
“I will work for all of the people of Israel. A government that Israel is desperate for. We will form a government that will push for peace and will know to deal definitively with every enemy,” said the former IDF chief of staff.
“I will do everything I can to create a government of national healing that will unite the tribes,” Gantz stressed, adding that “we are here to represent everyone, the Haredim, with whom we must sit and talk as brothers, the Arab citizens, our Druze brothers, as everyone else.”
With Gantz’s appointment, Netanyahu, for the first time in his 10 years of consecutive rule as prime minister, saw his exclusive control over Israel’s political system wrested from his hands, Times of Israel reported.
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