Benny Gantz Admits: ‘2005 Disengagement Was Mistake, No Further Withdrawals Possible’

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — National Unity party chief Benny Gantz remarked on Tuesday that Israel should not have fully withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, and that the notions of further Israeli withdrawals or Palestinian statehood were “disconnected from the security reality,” according to a Times of Israel report.

Gantz, who served during the 2005 disengagement as head of Northern Command,  made the comments in a speech in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, during a “Settlements Conference” organized by National Religious newspaper Makor Rishon.

The comments came a day after Israel announced it would begin seizing territory in Gaza as part of its strategy to defeat Hamas. Gantz, who joined the government days after the Gaza war began with the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, said he had advocated for Israel to seize land in the Strip in one of his first cabinet sessions, to create a buffer zone with the Palestinian territory.

Alhough he has since rejoined the opposition amid disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the conduct of the war, Gantz said entering the government had been “the most important and most correct decision I’ve made in political life,” and that he would not apologize to critics of the move.

Speaking about the 2005 Gaza Disengagement, Gantz said that the process was marred by “lots of problems.”

“The biggest mistake, in my opinion, was evacuating the northern settlements of Dugit, Nissanit, and Elei Sinai,” said Gantz, who was chief of the IDF Northern Command at the time of the Disengagement.

“We should have stayed there in order to control the territory,” Gantz admitted. “But principally there was a need to remain there in order to inform the world that the ’67 lines are irrelevant,” he added, referring to Israel’s borders before the Six Day War of June 1967, when the country captured from Jordan territories currently claimed by the Palestinians for a future state, including the Gaza Strip.

He said he supports establishing security control of the Strip, but that rebuilding settlements there “would be a mistake defense-wise, and would also divide the nation at a time when we need unity.”

“The State of Israel cannot allow a direct and substantive threat to its citizens on all its borders,” said Gantz. “Therefore it needs security control and to preserve freedom of action in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and in the border region with Syria”

“The implication is clear, and anyone who talks about a Palestinian state or withdrawals is simply disconnected from the security reality,” he added.

Gantz, who entered politics in 2018, three years after he retired as IDF chief of staff,  previously expressed support for a “two-entity solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As defense minister in 2021, he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — the first such meeting in years — and reportedly told him that he wants to be a “new Rabin,” referring to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated for pursuing a two-state solution.

Opinion polls early in the current Gaza war positioned Gantz as a leading candidate for prime minister, rewarding his ostensible statesmanship in joining the government days after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

Gantz’s lead in polls has since deflated. More recent surveys show him losing many voters to a potential party led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who has consistently rejected Palestinian statehood, and this may be the reason for Gantz’s rightward shift in opposing the establishment of such a state.