"We are a minority if we run separate, but if we run together, we can build a bloc that can get more votes than Likud and build a coalition."
By GIL HOFFMANUpdated: DECEMBER 19, 2018 06:04Benny Gantz(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
The largest ideological group in the Labor Party announced an initiative on Tuesday to persuade the Zionist Union, Yesh Atid and former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz to run together in the 2019 election.Members of the Central Stream, led by former MK Michael Bar Zohar, have been meeting with Labor and Yesh Atid MKs and Bar Zohar has met multiple times with Gantz.“This is the only way to handily defeat the Right,” Bar-Zohar said. “Labor cannot win the election on its own, nor can Yesh Atid or a party formed by Benny Gantz. We are a minority if we run separate, but if we run together, we can build a bloc that can get more votes than Likud and build a coalition with Kulanu, Shas and United Torah Judaism.”Bar Zohar said it was also important that such a bloc be formed, because former IDF chief Moshe Ya’alon would be more likely to join instead of forming another party that would waste votes.“We are trying to draft the support from those in the parties who realize they won’t win without running together, especially MKs in Yesh Atid, and they can then lobby their party leaders,”Bar Zohar said. “We need to overcome the ego of [Yesh Atid leader Yair] Lapid, [Zionist Union chairman] Avi Gabbay, Gantz and even the ego of Ehud Barak.”The central stream, which includes hundreds of Labor activists issued a formal call for Gabbay to do everything possible to build such a bloc.Bar Zohar said that based on his conversations with Gantz, he believes he is rational and would realize his place is with such a bloc.But asked who should lead the bloc, Bar Zohar said: “I won’t fall into that ambush.”