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Who Is Benny Gantz?
(Washington Post) Ruby Mellen - With a parliamentary election producing a deadlock, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a unity government with his opponent, Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White alliance. Born in Israel to Holocaust survivors, Gantz entered the armed forces in 1977 at age 18 and steadily climbed the ranks in a military career that spanned 38 years. In 1989, he oversaw an operation that airlifted 14,500 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. A decade later, he served as the commander of Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and then oversaw Israel's withdrawal from the region. While chief of staff, the IDF fought two wars in Gaza in 2012 and 2014. In January he ran a campaign ad taking credit for the 1,364 terrorists the IDF says it killed in the 2014 war.