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Gantz dismisses talk of internal spying within Blue and White

The Blue and White leader denied any minister was leaking party information. But he didn’t deny that potentially sensitive information had been gathered about him as a result of internal spying.

By World Israel News Staff

The sense of intrigue continues to grow within the Blue and White faction, a parliamentary list which finished tied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in the April Knesset election and is running neck-and-neck with the Likud in polls ahead of the September 17 ballot.

“Neither I nor anyone in Blue and White has any information on an MK from the party who is suspected of leaking,” MK Benny Gantz, the Blue and White leader, said on Wednesday.

His statement followed reports of internal spying on the part of individuals from Yesh Atid, one of the parties which make up Blue and White. Yesh Atid is headed by MK Yair Lapid, a former finance minister.

Strains and suspicions within Blue and White over Yesh Atid’s role in the alliance have been expressed most publicly by MK Moshe Ya’alon, a former IDF chief of staff and past defense minister, who is the leader of yet another party within Blue and White and has been outspoken in his criticism of Lapid.

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Ya’alon has charged that Lapid is a liability because of his verbal attacks on Haredi religious parties, even as Blue and White wishes to maintain a message of unity among Israelis, stressing that the state comes before any particular sector and ideology.

Ya’alon’s public comments have been followed by a series of reports, in the name of anonymous Blue and White sources, saying that Yesh Atid has been running a separate campaign from the rest of Blue and White and that there is “an atmosphere” of a breakup of the alliance that is in the offing once the September election takes place.

The Yediot Ahronoth newspaper and its Ynet website reported that in recent weeks, Blue and White hired the services of a business intelligence agency, headed by a former head of the Shin Bet Israeli domestic security service, to uncover any moles operating within the alliance.

Gantz has not denied that potentially sensitive information about him had been gathered as a result of internal spying.