Party Profile: Blue and White

Who they are

Blue and White is Benny Gantz's centrist party. Gantz, 67, is a former IDF chief of staff and a former defense minister. In 2019 and 2020 he came close to unseating Netanyahu. In the 2022 election, he ran as part of the National Unity alliance, which won 12 seats. Its Knesset faction has shrunk to four MKs (Gantz, Tamano-Shata, Biton and Schuster) as of 5 May 2026. The count after that is unconfirmed. It polls well below the threshold.

No poll in the window shows Blue and White at or above the threshold. Polls report vote share, not seats, for parties under the line.

Only the 24 Sep Lazar figure is confirmed by a second source. The rest come from one tracker. The highest reading I found in the last two months was 2.4% (Zman Yisrael, 19 to 20 Aug). My read of the trend is flat to down.

How it got here. Gantz led the polls in the weeks after 7 Oct 2023, with a peak of 41 seats in one early poll. He joined the war cabinet on 11 Oct 2023 and quit the emergency government on 9 June 2024, after an ultimatum on 18 May. By June 2024 the party polled 24. Maariv says it has not crossed the threshold in any of its weekly polls since Oct 2025. In the Knesset, it has bled members. The faction went from eight MKs to three.

The list: who is on it

Gantz filed just before the 10 pm deadline on 8 Sept. No one on this list is polling into the Knesset. The top six, in order:

I could not confirm slots 7 to 15. Wikipedia puts the full slate at 19 names. Check the Central Elections Committee list.

Benny Gantz (1). Born 9 June 1959. Chief of staff from 2011 to 2015. Entered politics in 2019 and ran against Netanyahu three times in a year. He served as defense minister from May 2020 under the Netanyahu-Gantz rotation deal, which collapsed in Dec 2020, and stayed on under Bennett and Lapid until Gallant replaced him in Dec 2022. He joined the war cabinet in Oct 2023 and left it in June 2024. He now says he regrets leaving, because it gave extremists more room.

Pnina Tamano-Shata (2). A sitting MK and the first Ethiopian-born woman to serve as a minister.

Aliza Bloch (3). Joined after Erdan and Edelstein's Unity party quit the race on 4 Sept. She is known for her time as mayor of Beit Shemesh.

Alon Schuster (6). A sitting MK and a long-time figure from the kibbutz movement.

Who left. Most of the party's weight left in the last year.

Orit Farkash-Hacohen also joined Yashar, per one source.

The merger attempts. None succeeded. Dedi Simchi announced an alliance in late June and the talks stalled by August. Yoaz Hendel's talks collapsed by early July over sitting with Haredi parties. Ayelet Shaked's talks ended over who would lead, and she said on 6 Sept that she would not run. Gilad Erdan's Unity held confirmed talks with Gantz on 26 Aug and quit on 4 Sept. Two sources call Gantz the last "third bloc" party standing.

The push to get Gantz out

The opposition wants Gantz to drop out. The logic is simple. Every vote for a list under 3.25% is thrown away. If his 1% to 2% would otherwise go to Yashar or Together, those parties lose seats they need to reach 61. Gantz refuses. This is the record so far.

The offers. Reports of deals are thin and some are contested.

• From the opposition. i24 reported on 4 Oct that Eisenkot's camp was considering offering Gantz the head of the National Security Council in exchange for withdrawing. One source only, and it is a proposal, not a confirmed offer. Gantz told Kan that Eisenkot, Bennett and Lapid offered him no reserved slot.
• From Likud. Channel 12 reported that Likud explored an alliance and offered a ministry, possibly Defense. Likud denied it. Gantz told Kan he turned down a reserved Likud slot.
• Surplus-vote deals. None found. Gantz is not in any of the four 2026 pairings I could confirm. See the surplus-vote article.

Gantz's answer. He says he owes loyalty to his voters, does not belong in anyone's "back pocket" and knows he will not be prime minister. He told the Times of Israel he would drop out if polls in the last week show him below the threshold. An associate told Ynet he will "run to the very end." He also cites internal research showing "more than five seats' worth" of voters and says fear of the threshold is the only barrier. That research is not public.

The clock. I found no legal deadline for withdrawing a list. Polling is banned from the end of Friday 23 Oct, so the last week of publishable polls is 16 to 23 Oct. That is the window Gantz named.

Why it matters. Wasted votes were decisive in 2022, when Meretz missed the threshold by about 4,000 votes. If Gantz stays in and falls short, his votes vanish. If he drops out, they scatter to Yashar, Together and others. The size is small, but the margin between 60 and 61 is smaller.

Platform and coalition plans

Will he sit with Netanyahu? Sources conflict. Wikipedia says he ruled it out in August. Three Times of Israel reports from April to October say he has not expressly ruled it out. On 29 Sept he said Netanyahu should leave office, without a flat refusal. I treat "has ruled out" as unverified. He has said he knows he will not be prime minister.

What he is selling. Gantz is the one man on the ballot who has served in a Netanyahu cabinet and left it, who wants a unity government, and who says no to both Ben-Gvir and the Arab parties. That is a coherent pitch. It also describes a seat count that the polls say does not exist.

What to watch.

• The last week of publishable polls, 16 to 23 Oct. Gantz has tied his decision to it.
• Any announced deal with Eisenkot. A security post for a withdrawal would be the clearest sign.
• Whether Likud tries to keep him in. A vote lost to the threshold helps whichever bloc benefits from fewer opposition seats.

Sources: Times of Israel, Gantz on dropping out; Times of Israel, Eisenkot urges Gantz to resign; Times of Israel, Eisenkot seeks meeting; Times of Israel, filing day; Jerusalem Post, 24 Sept poll; Jerusalem Post, 3 Oct; JFeed on the i24 report; Israel National News, Unity quits; Middle East Forum poll tracker; Wikipedia, Benny Gantz.