The leading challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a published interview Wednesday that that Israel should “find a way” to end its control over the Palestinians.

Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz made the comments in an interview with the Ynet news site. It was his first interview with the Israeli media since his maiden political speech last week.

Gantz, a tall, telegenic former general, has shot up in opinion polls since last week’s speech. Leading a new centrist party called Chosen Yisrael – “Israel Resilience,” he has emerged as a formidable challenger to the front-running Netanyahu in April 9 elections.

He has so far said little about the Palestinian issue, or whether he supports the establishment of a Palestinian state. But in Wednesday’s interview, he said the continued rule over the Palestinians is not an Israeli interest.

“We need to find a way in which we’re not controlling other people,” he told interviewers Shlomo Artzi and Hanoch Daum. Gantz quoted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s infamous 2009 Bar Ilan address, in which he stated that Israel does not wish to rule over others.

With peace talks frozen throughout most of Netanyahu’s decade-long rule, Gantz’s comments were welcomed by the Palestinians.

“It’s encouraging if he succeeds and he sticks to this opinion,” Nabil Abu Rdeneh, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters.

Gantz has partnered with former IDF chief and former defense minister, Moshe Ya’alon, who heads the Telem party. Ya’alon was opposed to the Oslo process which he feels is terrible and has cost many lives.

In the interview, Gantz was asked whether he favored another unilateral move similar to the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza, which is widely seen as a failure in Israel. Two years after the pullout, the Hamas terror group seized control of Gaza.

Gantz said the withdrawal was a “diplomatic move” by the government that was carried out in a “painful but good manner.”

“We need to take the lessons learned and implement them elsewhere,” he said.

His opponents quickly lambasted him. Netanyahu’s Likud Party warned that Gantz would form a “leftist” government backed by Arab parties, while the Naftali Bennet’s hard-line nationalist “New Right” party claimed that Gantz is planning on “expelling” more Jews from their homes.

Gantz’s party later put out a clarification saying “no unilateral decisions will be made on settlement evacuation”,  regarding additional communities throughout Yehuda and Shomron.

The interview came as Likud held its primary election to select its list of candidates for the Knesset election. In a setback to Netanyahu, his chief internal rival made a strong showing, despite a campaign by the prime minister to sideline him.

Near final results published Wednesday showed former Cabinet minister Gideon Saar finishing third in the internal party vote. Netanyahu views Saar as a potential replacement and had lobbied party members hard to push him down the list.

The Likud party has a strong lead in polls and is expected to win around 30 out of parliament’s 120 seats. With Netanyahu facing a series of corruption charges, the primaries have taken on added significance as an indicator for his potential successor within the party.

Transportation Minister Israel Katz and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein came in first and second after Netanyahu.

Gantz said he did not think Netanyahu should remain as prime minister if he is indicted.

In the interview, Gantz correctly stated that the Disengagement Plan was backed by Likud, Netanyahu, and now-Minister Miri Regev, who was the IDF Spokesman, the voice of the military during the expulsion.

While Netanyahu ultimately resigned from the government in protest over the Disengagement Plan, he only did so after it was a fait accompli, and his actions were nothing more than symbolic at best, as he was part of the process which led to the implementation of the expulsion of Gaza’s Jewish community.

When asked by Daum about a ground forces invasion of Gaza, Gantz said such a move carries a price and we must be willing to pay it. Gantz asked “Do you want me to flatten a hospital in Gaza with everyone inside? Answer me as a Jew, as an Israeli and as a fighter in the IDF. Daum of course responded “no”.

Gantz continued, “If I wish to flatten the hospital, I first must be certain there is no one inside it and if it will be the case, then he sent Golani soldiers inside to clear the building and six minutes later it was done. He stressed that while he has a duty to strike out hard at the enemy, it must be done with as few civilian casualties as possible, admitting there cannot be zero causalities, but one tries one’s best to minimize the number, as well as minimizing risk to soldiers.

The video contains a recent interview with former Defense Minister Ya’alon.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)