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Blue and White Israel Resilience Party כחול לבן חוסן לישראל | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Benny Gantz |
| Founded | 27 December 2018 |
| Ideology | Liberal Zionism[citation needed] Liberalism[citation needed](Israeli) |
| Political position | Centre[1] |
| National affiliation | Blue and White (2019–2022) National Unity (2022–2025) |
| Colours | Light blue |
| Slogan | Israel before everything[2] |
| Knesset | 8 / 120 |
| Website | |
| kachollavan.org.il | |
Blue and White Israel Resilience Party (Hebrew:כחול לבן חוסן לישראל,romanized: Kahol Lavan Hosen LeYisrael,lit. 'Blue and White Resilience for Israel')[3] is acentrist,liberal Zionistpolitical party in Israel which was founded in December 2018 as theIsrael Resilience Party byBenny Gantz, formerChief of the General Staff of theIsrael Defense Forces.
The party first ran in theApril 2019 Knesset elections,[4] as part of theBlue and White alliance. In the2022 Knesset elections the party ran as part of theNational Unity alliance. In July 2025, following the resignations of Gadi Eisenkot and Matan Kahana, party leader Benny Gantz announced that the party would revert to its original name,Blue and White, though the party name was changed to Blue and White-National Unity on 7 July 2025 after the name change was approved by theKnesset House Committee.
In general, the Israel Resilience Party is mainly regarded as a centrist party; and has also been evaluated ascentre-right[5] orcentre-left.[6]
On 16 February 2015,Benny Gantz completed his term asChief of the General Staff and entered a three-year legal cooling-off period in which he could not run for theKnesset, which ended on 2 July 2018.[7] Subsequently, in September 2018, it was reported that Gantz planned to enter politics.[8] On 27 December, the day after the dissolution of the20th Knesset, Gantz submitted 109 signatures to register a new political party under the nameHosen L'Yisrael ("Resilience for Israel"), officially known in English as theIsrael Resilience Party.[9][10]
The Israel Resilience Party initially formed an alliance withTelem, led by former Chief of the General StaffMoshe Ya'alon, in late January 2019, ahead of theApril 2019 legislative election.[11] On 21 February 2019, the alliance was joined byYair Lapid'sYesh Atid in a list calledBlue and White.[12] Under the agreement, should the alliance win the election, Gantz and Lapid would rotate thepremiership, with Gantz first serving 2.5 years, followed by Lapid completing the term.[13]
During the April election, Blue and White won 35 seats, tied withLikud, which narrowly topped the popular vote. However, after Likud's leaderBenjamin Netanyahu's inability to form a new government, new elections were called forSeptember of the same year.[14] Blue and White won the election with 33 seats, one more than Likud, but Israeli PresidentReuven Rivlin first gave Netanyahu the chance to form the new government. Netanyahu was unable to form a government and President Rivlin gave the mandate to lead the process to Gantz,[15] who was also unable to secure a coalition. Therefore, new elections were called forMarch 2020,[16] in which Likud won three more seats than Blue and White.[17]
Gantz was elected theSpeaker of the Knesset in March 2020 as part of an anticipated unity government with Likud, which led to Blue and White splitting, with Gantz's party retaining the name, as well as Yesh Atid and Telem leaving the party.[18]
After weeks of party negotiations, already in the midst of theCOVID-19 pandemic, Gantz and Netanyahu agreed to form an "emergency coalition" in which Netanyahu would remain as prime minister for 18 months, and Gantz would later assume the position for at least 18 months.[19]
Although the new government was sworn in in May, the Knesset was again dissolved at the end of the year, resulting in the need fornew elections for 2021.[20] Blue and White won eight seats in the Knesset, losing half of the seats that it held.[21]
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With the call fornew elections for 2022, Gantz led a new political alliance calledNational Unity with the moreright-wingNew Hope party, as well as independentsGadi Eisenkot andMatan Kahana,[22] winning 12 seats in the Knesset.[23] On 28 August 2023 the party changed its name from "Israel Resilience" to "Blue and White Israel Resilience".[3] The group was part of the opposition until the outbreak ofGaza war, in which National Unity joined theIsraeli war cabinet and thethirty-seventh government of Israel.[24]
His party withdrew from the government in June 2024, losing its ability to "moderate policy".[25]
The party changed the name of its Knesset faction to Blue and White-National Unity on 7 July 2025.[26]
In July 2025, the party announced it would hold itsfirst internal leadership primary ahead of the next Knesset election. This move marks a shift toward internal democratization, and comes amid the departure of Eisenkot and Kahana from the party.[27]
According to the official registration document handed to the Registrar of Parties on 27 December 2018,[28] the Israel Resilience Party's goals are:
Continuing to establish and strengthen the State of Israel as aJewish and democratic state in light of theZionist vision, as expressed in theDeclaration of Independence, while determining and changing the national priorities on the following subjects: education, national infrastructure development, agriculture, law and internal security, welfare policy, and peace and security.
In his first campaign speech on 29 January 2019, party leader Gantz described Israel as "a leading high-tech country with a low-tech government that is self-employed". He vowed to provide incentives for entrepreneurs and medical students, "impose harsh sanctions on those who speculatively raise land and housing prices", as well as build and expand more hospitals. Furthermore, he said he will create new jobs in the agriculture sector.
Gantz also focused on ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all citizens, and combating violence against women. He promised to "deepen my partnerships with theultra-Orthodox, theArabs, and theDruze" in establishing a civil service for all, in addition to army service.
Regarding national security, Gantz vowed to "strengthen thesettlement blocs and theGolan Heights, from which we will never retreat", also pledging that a "UnitedJerusalem" will forever remain Israel's capital. He said that theJordan Valley should remain as the country's eastern security border, without allowing the Palestinians living beyond theseparation barrier to "endanger our security and our identity as a Jewish state". He said he will strive for peace, mentioning the treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and commending prime ministersMenachem Begin,Yitzhak Rabin, and even his current rivalBenjamin Netanyahu as "patriots". Gantz personally addressedIranian generalQasem Soleimani andHezbollah leaderHassan Nasrallah that he "will not tolerate a threat to Israeli sovereignty", and warnedHamas leader Yahya Sinwar, "I suggest you not test me again."[29][30]
According to Gantz, he leansright when it comes to security issues,left when it comes to socio-economic issues, andliberal in his economic goals.[31]
Three victims of alleged sexual abuse criticised the Israel Resilience Party for hiringRonen Tzur as a strategic advisor. Tzur was the media strategist behind a campaign to block the extradition ofMalka Leifer, who faced 74 charges of sex abuse in Melbourne, Australia.[32]
Eisenkot left the party in June 2025, in part, because the proposed leadership primary would not have been competitive.[33]
| Leader | Took office | Left office | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | Benny Gantz | 2019 | Incumbent | |
| Election | Leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2019 | Benny Gantz | WithinBlue and White | 15 / 120 | – | Snap election | |
| Sep 2019 | 15 / 120 |  | Snap election | |||
| 2020 | 15 / 120 | | Coalition | |||
| 2021[a] | 292,257 | 6.63 (#4) | 8 / 120 |  7 | Coalition | |
| 2022 | WithinNational Unity | 6 / 120 | 2 | Opposition(2022–Oct 2023) | ||
| Coalition(Oct 2023–Jun 2024) | ||||||
| Opposition(Jun 2024–) | ||||||
| Year | Members | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 2022- | Benny Gantz,Pnina Tamano-Shata,Hili Tropper,Michael Biton,Orit Farkash-Hacohen,Alon Schuster,Eitan Ginzburg,Yael Ron Ben-Moshe | 8 |
Gantz heads his recently launched centrist Israel Resilience party
ביום י"א באלול התשפ"ג (28 באוגוסט 2023) שונה שמה של מפלגת "חוסן ישראל" שמספרה 59-900123-7 לשם: "כחול לבן חוסן לישראל"
Yaalon remains widely respected in Israeli society and cements Gantz and Resilience for Israel, or Hosen LeYisrael, as a center-right party with a strong security portfolio.
his two main competitors on the centre-left, Benny Gantz's Hosen Yisrael party and Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party.