One look at Defense Minister Benny Gantz over the last few days and it's hard not to see this is a man stirring in his own soup. Ultimatums violated, promises tossed aside for no good reason, and a long trail of disappointed voters left behind, the Blue and White party head now faces the most difficult dilemma of his political life. This situation is of course his own doing. He can either fold on the budget issue, give Netanyahu a later date for calling elections before the rotation deal goes into effect and put an end to any remaining trace of dignity he might have and seemingly along with it his political career, or he can stand firm and walk unflinchingly toward an election campaign that will also spell the end of his political career.
Never has a man dug himself a hole so deep.
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Netanyahu does not intend to enter into negotiations over a law to disperse the Knesset to be proposed on Wednesday. Why would he? He wants to keep his options for calling an election open, and if that doesn't happen at a later date as he is interested in, it might as well happen now as far as he is concerned. Unlike Gantz, the polls seem to be smiling on Netanyahu, and even the threat of a trial on corruption charges hanging over his head, with the potential to derail his campaign, is no longer guaranteed to begin in February. It might only be after the election.
The calm, moderate, unifying tone Netanyahu has adopted of late is driving Gantz out of his mind. It takes two to tango, and in the meantime, it seems like while one side is calm and collected, the other is threatening and incendiary and trying to force a confrontation that refuses to come.
Gantz's announcement he plans to vote in favor of legislation aimed at dispersing the Knesset on Wednesday is not exactly surprising. Nor does it tell us much about what will happen from now on.
In an attempt to please his nonexistent base, Gantz has ordered the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the submarine scandal and is set to propose a series of laws on equality and LGBT rights in the Knesset. It may be that support for dispersing the Knesset in the preliminary reading will to his capitulation on the budget later on, and we haven't even gotten to the big guns to be drawn in the current battle on term limits and the law to prevent a sitting prime minister from serving under indictment. If need be, he'll pull them out in a show of guns, possibly before he waves a white flag on the budget.
Everyone agrees that if Gantz had gone with his gut, he would have informed Netanyahu they could reach a compromise on the budget and continued on for a few weeks, maybe even months, a long time ago. But now some of his friends are down in the hole he dug for himself with him, and they're keeping him from coming up for air.
In a faction meeting, Monday, Gantz encountered staunch opposition from some in his party to the notion of any compromise or dialogue that leads to something other than an election. Gantz was forced to go with the flow and place his future, however unwillingly, in their hands. The attacks by Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn, and Blue and White MKs Miki Haimovich and Asaf Zamir didn't leave him much choice. More than a show of guns, this was Gantz giving in to his party.
If Blue and White does vote to disperse the Knesset, Gantz will have dug himself a hole so deep, he may never see daylight again. Going back on this, reaching a compromise, and opposing the rest of the votes in the legislative process would break the record for political pitifulness.
It seems that just like the Shinui and Kadima parties before it, Blue and White's number is up. The greater the expectations, it seems, the greater the disappointment. Internal fighting doomed those forgotten political corpses, and now Blue and White is confidently marching down the exact same path.
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