What Does the New York Times Have in Common with the Pittsburgh & San Diego Murderers?

The offensive cartoon by Antonio Moreira Antunes that the New York Times published last week in its international edition [not in the US edition. I wonder why.] showed a blind President Trump wearing a Jewish skull cap being led around by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, depicted as a guide dog for the blind. The dog wears a collar with a magen David [shield of David] on it. The meaning here is that Netanyahu and/or the State of Israel control American policy.

The Pittsburgh and San Diego murderers, Robert Bowers and John Earnest respectively, both believe or claim that Israel/Jews control the US through Trump. The same message as the cartoon in the NYTimes.

The claim of Jewish control of the US government has long been a theme of neo-Nazis in the United States. They commonly used the abbreviation ZOG, standing for "Zionist occupied government." A similar theme was also found in the notorious forgery and plagiarism produced by the Russian tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols argue that a secret Jewish conspiracy dominates the world, incites wars and all sorts of grave social ills and mass suffering. Considering that most presidents have been hostile to Israel or worked to thwart Israeli policy, such as Obama, this argument is ridiculous. By the way, in the usual practice of politicians to make promises that they cannot or have no intention of keeping, some of the presidents have spoken warmly about Israel. Were they sincere or not, we cannot say since nobody has a sincerometer to measure sincerity. But the ZOG argument is ridiculous. Also consider that President Franklin D Roosevelt --a hero to American Liberals and progressives to this day-- tried hard not to rescue Jews from Hitler's genocide or save Jews or destroy the gas chambers with air power, which was possible by 1943 when American forces were already in Sicily and were bombing areas in Poland near Auschwitz (Oswiecim) -- but not bombing the Auschwitz death camp or the railroad tracks leading up to it.

The theme of Jewish control --or Israeli control in the up to date version-- of the world also popped out of the typing hands of US Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, in her effort on  Twitter several years ago: Israel has hypnotized the world. In Omar's case she was injecting alleged Jewish magic into the discussion. After all, hypnotizing the world could only be done through magic, and hypnotism is perceived as a form of magic. Her claim that American support for Israel is purchased by Benjamins [$100 dollar bills with a picture of Benjamin Franklin] is an insult to both Jews and US congressmen and women. It is saying that Jews control the US Congress and presidents through payments of money, as if there are no good arguments for Americans and their congressmen to support Israel. It says too that the congressmen and presidents can simply be bought by money. Lastly, it endorses the ZOG claim that Jews and/or Israel control US policy. If money could buy everybody in Congress or the White House, then the US would have been supporting the Arab cause since long ago. After all, the money stored up by Qatar [a slave state] and other oil-rich Arab sheikdoms and kingdoms --money probably exceeding Jewish wealth-- would have been able to buy Congress and presidents with ease. Of course, Arab states have been able to hire various US politicians and former State Department and CIA officials. Saudi Arabia, for instance, hired several who had retired from State or the CIA. And the two Bush administrations were noted for their concern with the needs of the Saudis and the palestinian Arabs and Kuwait and so on. But that did not mean Arab control of Washington. So the ZOG claim is ridiculous whether it comes from neo-Nazis, Alt-Right bigots or  Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Now this belief or insinuation or claim that Jews control the world or only the USA also turned up in the rants of the Pittsburgh and San Diego murderers who attacked synagogues, shooting congregants at prayer services. Seth Frantzman has conveniently brought together the rants of Robert Bowers and John Earnest in an article for the Jerusalem Post [JPost 28 April 2019].

Frantzman wrote:
The antisemitic links between the two attacks are clear. Both expressed hatred of Jews, who they accused of destroying or invading the United States. Bowers accused Jews and Jewish groups, such as the non-partisan refugee protection organization HIAS, of being behind “migrant caravans” whom he calls “invaders.” The Poway attacker asked: “Is it worth it for me to live a comfortable life at the cost of international Jewry sealing the doom of my race?”

Frantzman's deduction is based on:

The alleged manifesto of the shooter behind the attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue includes condemnation of US President Donald Trump. The letter, or manifesto, was posted on the popular US-based image board website 8chan. “That Zionist, Jew-loving, anti-White, traitorous [expletive],” John Earnest wrote in a version quoted online.
Similarly, Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers wrote on the mainly far-right website Gab that he opposed Trump, who he claimed was surrounded by Jews. “Trump is a globalist, not a nationalist.” He claimed that Jews, who he used an expletive to describe, were an “infestation” in the White House.

And he quotes more:

Bowers talked about a “Jewish international oligarchy” while Earnest wrote about “international Jewry.”

Here is Frantzman's conclusion:

there is a link between antisemitism on the far Right and anti-Trump views, a link that is also clear on the far Left. It tends to unite around hatred not only of Jews, but also of Israel and of beliefs that the US is controlled by Jews, who in turn are accused of controlling banks or the media

 Note that the two murderers also hate President Trump and believe or claim that he is controlled by Jews. Well, just what was the meaning of the offensive cartoon published by the NYTimes in its international edition? Was it not, among other things, that Trump is controlled by Jews? So here we have a convergence of the San Diego and Pittsburgh murderers with a cartoon published [later removed after widespread condemnation] by the NYT and with Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim whose early education was in Somalia, a fanatic Muslim country which cannot live at peace with itself.

We can conclude that conventional notions of "Right" and "Left" and of a Left-Right spectrum fail to consider or understand or explain the significant convergence of Left and Right and Islamic Judeophobia. The New York Times is running with the rabid dogs infected with Judeophobic notions already standing out in the notorious Protocols, produced around 1900, and can certainly have helped to inspire the San Diego and Pittsburgh murders.
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See other Seth Frantzman articles on the NYT cartoon and the San Diego & Pittsburgh murders listed at this link: here.

Aryeh Stav  has studied Arab anti-Jewish and anti-Israel cartoons in a book and a pamphlet. The book was published in Hebrew with a subsequent English translation, plus a pamphlet in English.
(אריה סתיו, השלום - קריקטורה ערבית (תל אביב: זמורה ביטן  1996
Arieh Stav, Peace, The Arabian Caricature of Antisemitic Imagery (Jerusalem: Gefen Pubs. 1999)

Aryeh Stav, "Arab Antisemiism - After Peace" (Tel Aviv: The Center for Policy Research), Policy Paper 1. This pamphlet is an extensive summary of the book on caricatures listed above. Note that Stav's first name is spelled differently in different places.

Ancient Inscription Found Calling the Land of Israel IVDAEA [Judea]

The Roman and Greek name for the Land of Israel as a whole in the heyday of the Roman Empire was Judea, spelled in Latin IVDAEA.
[as a caution bear in mind that Latin has case endings for nouns so in cases other than the nominative case the name may be spelled other than IVDAEA. Also the V was pronounced like a U while I was pronounced like Y]. This Latin name for the Land of Israel was pronounced more like Yudaya. The word Judea apparently comes from the Aramaic word Yehudaya, meaning The Jews. Since Greek and Latin do not have a soft H sound, it was dropped when they uttered the Aramaic YeHudaya [יהודאיא] and the sound came out Yudaya, IVDAEA.

I have already shown here on Emet m'Tsion that the name Judea is found on inscriptions as well as on Roman coins, military diplomas [see one here], books, etc.

Here is an inscription found in 1961 at Caesarea  [also  Caesarea Maritima] on the coast of Israel, in ancient times Judea. The Roman name for Israel is Judea, IVDAEA, shows up on the stone inscription. Also appearing is the name Pontius Pilatus, who was the Roman governor of Judea [called a PRAEFECTVS in this inscription]. Pilatus appears in the New Testament story of Jesus, thus also confirming that part of the New Testament account.

TIBERIEVM

 [PO]NTIVS PILATVS

  [PRAEF]ECTVS IVDA[EAE]

In reading the inscription on the rock in the photo below, note that the Romans ran the words together, so that on the third line we see: ECTUSIVDA. Today of course we separate words. Thus we should read the inscription as [PRAEF]ECTUS IVDA[EAE].
The second and third line translate as Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judea. Hence, we have confirmation of two facts: 1) the Roman/Latin name of the country was Judea; 2) the governor was Pontius Pilatus at a certain period.  The word Tiberieum refers to a building devoted to worship of the Emperor Tiberius [reigning 14-37]. So this large rock could have been part of or set up near to a temple devoted to the worship of Tiberius.




The photo is found here.

See more on this general subject here and here.

Blue-White against Itself in 2014

As most people likely know, former commander-in-chief, Gabi Ashkenazi, is part of the four-headed leadership of  the Blue-White Party, the second largest in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, and Ehud Barak, is a former commander-in-chief and defense minister. Barak worked to encourage formation of the Blue-White Party while not being formally part of it. So now they are in the same camp, on the same team. Yet, just several years ago, Barak complained to the Police that Ashkenazi threatened him. "You are going to war against me." These are two of the men behind Benny Gantz and his Blue-White Party that is basically a fake party.
See article below in Hebrew and translation to English.
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The Ashkenazi Affair: The Ex-Defense Minister Told that He Had Sought to Appoint a Replacement for the Ex-C-in-C -- And Then the Battle between Them Became Overt

The ex-defense minister, Ehud Barak, testified about two weeks ago in the Police in the setting of an investigation of the Harpaz Affair. Barak sat facing the police investigators for about ten hours and described how, according to him, the ex-c-in-c, Gabi Ashkenazi and his men, had "undermined" him and the political echelon.

It should be stressed that Barak gave "open testimony" and was not interrogated under suspicion. On Channel 2 it was publicized last night that the ex-defense minister told the interrogators about a meeting between him and Ashkenazi, in which he informed the ex-c-in-c of his intention to appoint a replacement for him, a year before the end of his term in office. According to him, in reaction, Ashkenazi threatened him and said to him "You are going to war," and left the room angrily.

It will be recalled that in August 2013, Barak presented a declaration to the district court of the Center [of the country] in Lod in which he claimed that the ex-c-in-c, Ashkenazi, headed "a group of senior officers, a number of civilians and reserve officers that acted improperly in order to prevent a legal process of appointing a c-in-c for "the IDF and against the political echelon [the government, the cabinet] while using apparently criminal means and behavior" [Israel Today 29 April 2014; translated by Eliyahu]

פרשת אשכנזי: שר הביטחון לשעבר סיפר כי ביקש למנות לרמטכ"ל לשעבר מחליף - ואז הקרב ביניהם הפך לגלוי

שר הביטחון לשעבר אהוד ברק העיד לפני כשבועיים במשטרה במסגרת חקירת פרשת הרפז. ברק ישב מול חוקרי המשטרה במשך כעשר שעות ותיאר כיצד לטענתו הרמטכ"ל לשעבר גבי אשכנזי ואנשיו "חתרו" נגדו ונגד הדרג המדיני.

יודגש כי ברק מסר "עדות פתוחה" ולא נחקר כחשוד. בערוץ 2 פורסם אמש כי שר הביטחון לשעבר סיפר לחוקרים על פגישה בינו לבין אשכנזי, שבה הודיע לרמטכ"ל לשעבר על כוונתו למנות לו מחליף, חצי שנה לפני סוף כהונתו. לדבריו, בתגובה אשכנזי איים עליו ואמר לו "אתה יוצא למלחמה", ועזב את החדר בזעם.

כזכור, באוגוסט 2013 הגיש ברק תצהיר לבית המשפט המחוזי מרכז בלוד, שבו טען כי הרמטכ"ל לשעבר אשכנזי עמד בראש "קבוצה של קצינים בכירים, מספר אזרחים וקציני מילואים, אשר פעלה באופן פסול כדי למנוע תהליך חוקי של מינוי רמטכ"ל לצה"ל וכנגד הדרג המדיני, תוך כדי שימוש בכלים ובהתנהגות עבריינית לכאורה". 

[ישראל היום 29 אפריל 2014] [Israel Today 29 April 2014] [Also see, Israel Post, 29 April 2014; Hebrew]

Gantz Was a Mediocre General

After orchestrating the hasty, dishonorable and endangering Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in the early summer of 2000, under the orders of Ehud Barak, a retreat that endangered the population of northern Israel, Gantz was awarded another command by Barak. This was the command of the Judea-Samaria Division which gave Gantz not only command of his troops but much authority over the civilian population, Jewish and Arab, in that area [in particular Area C]. He took over the division in September 2000, just a few weeks before the planned "Second Intifada" broke out. One memorable incident from that period was the death of an Israeli Druze officer, Madhat Yusuf, at Joseph's Tomb outside the town of Nablus [Sh'khem]. The Tomb was an enclave within Palestinian Authority territory that was guarded by Israeli army forces because it is a Jewish holy site, also revered by other religions. Madhat Yusuf was wounded when the Tomb was attacked by an armed Arab mob, organized by Arafat's minions. The wounds could have been treated but under Gantz' orders, Israeli army medical personnel could not get to him, possibly because the PA [= arafat] had refused to allow the peaceful arrival of medics. But other Israeli troops were nearby and could have acted to force open the way for medics. But Gantz gave the order to act only after hours of waiting. A few soldiers were killed in the first, clumsy attempt to get through to the Tomb. As to Madhat Yusuf, he bled to death after hours of not being treated.

Barak left the prime minister's office in March 2001 after widespread dissatisfaction with his general conduct as prime minister and especially with his response to the terrorist insurrection, the Second Intifada, that he dealt with leniently. For instance, Barak allowed Arab snipers to shoot at cars passing on Route One in northern Jerusalem by the Arab Shu`afat neighborhood for about two or three months. One of the victims was a teenaged Arab girl who insisted that Jews had shot at the family van she was in, because Arabs would never shoot at an Arab family, she claimed.

Be that as it may, this sniping was suppressed or in any case ended shortly after Ariel Sharon took over as prime minister. Several months later, in July 2001, Gantz was removed from command of the Judea-Samaria Division. This was curious because commanders of the Division had usually served in the role for two or three years. And here Gantz was replaced after only about nine months. Furthermore, it is unusual to remove a commander while combat is going on.  Akiva Bigman of Yisrael HaYom [3-15-2019] spoke with a senior official close to PM Sharon who explained that Sharon was not satisfied with the army's conduct in general and with Gantz in particular.

Under Gantz the Division was afraid to attack centers/foci of terrorism and soldiers were not allowed to enter Area A under full PA control according to previous accords, even if terrorists had departed from those zones in order to commit a terrorist act or shot at the troops from Arab villages in Area A.
"The IDF's hands were tied," an officer told Bigman. On the occasion of the murder of Rabbi Benyamin Herling, who was hiking on Mount Eibal, the assailants were not pursued although an army unit ready to pursue, was told not to interfere. Nevertheless, the tragic circumstances of the needless death of Madhat Yusuf made his death emblematic of the period.

One of those who spoke to Bigman was General Chico Tamir, He explained that the new commander of the Judea-Samaria Division, Yits'haq Goshen, told his subordinate commanders that they were in a new war situation. And he allowed pursuit into Area A.

Gantz became commander-in-chief against Netanyahu's wishes. Netanyahu and even Ehud Barak, defense minister around 2010, wanted Yoav Gallant as the new c-in-c. But Gallant was torpedoed by embarassing, if minor, charges against him that appeared in certain press organs. So Netanyahu and Israel were stuck with Gantz who was definitely the default choice.

In the 2014 war against Hamas in Gaza, neither Gantz nor his partner in the Blue-White Party, Ya`alon, then defense minister, wanted to do anything about the 30-odd attack tunnels that Hamas had dug under the 1949 armistice line with the Gaza Strip into pre-1967 Israel. They did not take the tunnels seriously. Yet one soldier,, Gilad Shalit, had been abducted from his base on the Israeli side of the line in 2006, so the top brass should have known and understood the threat. But it seems that Gantz and Ya`alon did not want to deal with the threat of the tunnels through which Hamas could move terrorist squads to attack kibbutzim and farming communities around the perimeter of Gaza. In another cruel event, soldiers were sent into battle in old armored cars [APCs] that could not withstand the anti-tank rockets in Hamas' possession. These soldiers were killed. Why were such outmoded APCs provided for Israeli soldiers in 2014? Did someone or someones want soldiers to get killed?

In any event, Gantz's conduct of the war was mediocre if not incompetent. Neither he nor Ya`alon, his partner in Blue-White should ever be in a senior political or military position.

Much of the info in this article, but far from all, comes from Bigman's article. When Bigman asked the Blue-White Party for a response to his findings, he was told that the question was not "relevant."

Shall Israel Elect a Gross Liar and Fraudulent Party to Mislead the People?

Have people noticed that in many ways the new Blue-White party of Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid has been trying to persuade people that it is much like Likud, but more "honest"? Moreover, Gantz, Lapid  and their strategists wanted to  be seen as patriotic, whereas patriotism is often seen as "rightist." That is why they called their party Blue-White, the colors of Israel's flag although the colors have little ideological content and do not disclose what their policies would be if elected.

In fact, Lapid himself stated on TV that Blue-White was much like Likud, "like Likud used to be" is how I think he put it. Gantz stated in a speech that the distinctions between "Right" and "Left" are not what they used to be. That is often true and I myself believe that the notion of a right-left political and ideological spectrum is very unhelpful for understanding politics today, if it ever was helpful, perhaps at the time of the revolutionary Assembly in France after the 1789 revolution. In those years, the seating in the Assembly was arranged in a semi-circle and parties that were more moderate or conservative were seated on the right and those more radical to the left. However, politics is three-dimensional rather than two-dimensional as on a spectrum.
That brings us back to Israel.
In the 1992 election campaign, the Labor Party pretended to be very similar to Likud but without "corruption" while they accused Likud of being corrupt [מושחתים נמאסתם]. Indeed, this was apparently the design of Haim Ramon who was, as I recall, running the Labor campaign. Enemies of Labor accused the party of trying to be Likud B. Well, what happened was that Labor came out ahead in the elections, partly because several national camp parties did not make it over the percentage threshold of votes, although the national and religious camp did obtain more votes than the so-called Left. And then, after forming a coalition government with the anti-national Meretz party and the ultra-orthodox Shas, Shimon Peres and his poodle, Yossi Beilin [according to Rabin], made the horrendous Oslo accords with the PLO, whereas PM Rabin had promised during the election campaign that he would not deal with the PLO, yet was presented with the fait accompli of the Oslo negotiations by Peres who had started negotiating with the PLO behind Rabin's back. The Oslo accords did not bring peace nor even a lessening of terrorist murders but in fact a sharp increase in terrorist murders. Oslo was a disaster, a death pact, not only for Israel but for people the world over as Oslo quietly encouraged mass murderous terrorism not only against Israel but in many countries, from the USA to France to India to Kenya and Nigeria, etc etc. The Oslo accords set a bad example for the world because they legitimized a band of mass murderous terrorists, they  legitimized mass murder and murder in general. And the relations between Jews and Arabs within the country, within Israel, have worsened. The Oslo Peace was no peace at all.

I see that same thing happening again here in Israel as in 1992. A party that wants to give away parts of the Land of Israel, as Gantz has strongly hinted [unilateral withdrawals in order to "separate" from the Judea-Samaria Arabs], is at the same time pretending to be like the Likud but cleaner, straighter more honest. Yet Gantz is hardly honest. The state controller recently released a report that showed that a now bankrupt company formerly headed by Gantz had obtained a contract with the Israel Police without a proper tender for offers, being issued. The state controller also reported that Gantz' firm had misrepresented important information to the Police. This happened while Gantz was head of the company. The suspicion is of improper collusion between Gantz and the Police Commissioner, ash-Sheikh.

Gantz is also loose with the truth when it comes to smearing Netanyahu. Near the start of the election campaign, about two months ago, Gantz in a speech accused Netanyahu of being an army shirker. Gantz claimed that Netanyahu as a young man had left Israel to go to the United States, specifically to Boston, where he spent much time going to fancy cocktail parties. This is a filthy smear. In fact, BB's father, Professor Netanyahu, had gone to the USA to teach on a university level, and took his children with him. Benyamin Netanyahu lived just outside Philadelphia [not Boston] in Cheltenham Township. And he attended middle school there and later went on to be a student at Cheltenham High School. After graduating high school he came to Israel to join the army, whereas he could have stayed in the USA [although his father would likely have objected]. He followed in the footsteps of his brother Yonatan, Yoni, who was the commander of the Israeli operation to rescue hostages from Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Yoni, z'l was shot and died in the operation, the only soldier to die in it. BB too served in an elite commando unit as an officer. He was hardly a shirker of army service.

And another thing, Gantz also insinuated that BB was not an authentic Israeli, that he was too American. For those unacquainted with Israel and with the anti-national camp, called the Left, that is a fairly common insult for "leftists" to make and I myself have suffered the insult -- and from a "leftist," a member of the anti-national Meretz Party. But it is an ugly prejudice and where is it most common? I already said that.

More personal lies about Netanyahu are detailed by Ruthie Blum in her column in the Jerusalem Post:
Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz crossed a rhetorical redline this week that made every other malicious maneuver of the current campaign, on both sides of the political spectrum, seem like child’s play. . . .  Gantz likened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Yes, the leading contender in the race for the premiership actually compared the incumbent leader of the only democracy in the region . . . to a radical Islamist autocrat, who imprisons anyone he deems a dissident. . . .
[Ruth Blum pointed out that Erdogan has conducted] Stalin-like purges and [has] absolute control of every sector of Turkish society. . . . Unlike Turks subjected to Erdogan’s repressive rule, after all, Israeli citizens enjoy human and civil rights.
. . . . 
The future of Israel, he reiterated to the Times of Israel, “is at stake. As a democracy, it is at stake. I’m not saying the problem is coming here tomorrow, but the trend is very, very, very dangerous.”

There’s irony for you.

The so-called “dangerous trend” to which he was referring is actually a positive progression in a system based on the will of the people, not the whim of despots like Erdogan.

Israelis enjoy free speech, for instance, but do not wish to spend their tax shekels on “art” that portrays them as murderous thugs. Hence, Culture Minister Miri Regev’s policy of being discerning when it comes to funding projects has been welcomed by the public.
Nor do Israelis appreciate the degree to which the courts have become interventionist in political matters. This is why, to give another example, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s moves to clip the wings of the judiciary have been widely popular. . . . .

Meanwhile, Netanyahu – whose “attacks on everyone, including the media” are a cause of such great concern to Gantz – is the one under constant assault. He is investigated by the police, hindered by the courts and eviscerated by the press. Whether it is wise of him to lash out verbally in return is arguable.

WHAT IS NOT a matter of debate, however, is that the situation in Turkey is just the opposite. Erdogan has incarcerated thousands of judges, policemen, professors, politicians and members of the media. In fact, Turkey today is reportedly the world’s largest jailer of journalists. 

Given Gantz’s impressive display of ignorance throughout the interview – including admitting to the two journalists gently grilling him, “Listen, you are more experienced than me” – it’s no wonder that he has spent the bulk of his newfound political career looking pretty and keeping his mouth shut. . . . 
Gantz made a final fool of himself by saying that at times, he has been forced to stoop to Netanyahu’s “low” level of campaign discourse – “but in principle, I think that Israel deserves something more respectful, more statesmanlike, more serious. So I try to maintain the high ground as far as possible.”

Really?

Equating Netanyahu with Erdogan is not just the antithesis of “respectful, statesmanlike and serious.” Nor is it simply a form of hitting a political rival below the belt. It is utterly immoral, and should be viewed with the horror it deserves.
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Do you get the picture? Various interests in Israel and abroad want to get rid of Netanyahu because he is too successful a leader. Because he is too good for Israel. So they found a former commander-in-chief of the Israeli army, a mediocre general at best, and gave him backing in the form of money and campaign strategists, to go after Netanyahu, supposedly surpassing Netanyahu in the areas that Netanyahu's base is supposedly concerned with, security, defense [in one early video, Gantz boasted of how many Arabs he had killed], good government, and democracy, and for good measure they got two more former commanders-in-chief [Ya`alon & Ashkenazi] to join his ticket plus the former journalist, Yair Lapid, who already had a party organization and had served in Netanyahu's previous govt, 2013-2015, as an incompetent treasury minister. Does it exculpate or incriminate Gantz that his smears of BB were likely proposed to him by his so-called strategic advisors provided by his moneyed backers? The lie about Netanyahu being an army shirker probably was unfavorably received by the public since it has not been repeated. Too many people know about Netanyahu as an officer in the elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal, which among other things rescued hostages on a Sabena Airlines plane hijacked to the main Israeli airport by terrorists. BB was wounded in that action and in at least one other combat encounter.
Lapid in 2013, like Gantz now, got a lot of favorable media attention during the  election campaign. As for Lapid's military service, unlike Netanyahu, he served in a rather cushy unit, you might call him a chocolate soldier. He worked on the staff of a weekly magazine published by the army, BaMahhaneh במחנה, which was freely sold throughout the country. Lapid's father was a prominent journalist which probably explains how he got assigned to a desk job. Gantz's disdain for army shirkers does not seem to apply to Lapid, or maybe politics makes strange bedfellows. 
Just one last thing about Lapid. When ex-US prez Obama visited Israel in 2013, there was a receiving line for him at the airport, and most ministers were in the line. Going down the line, Obama stopped for a minute or more in front of Lapid, longer than with anybody else. They looked each other in the eye. And as I recall, Obama told Lapid that he expected to be working together with him in the future. Together with him, with Lapid specifically. What does that tell us about possible connections between Lapid and Obama that have not been reported in the press?
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MORE ON GANTZ
BBC timeline of Gantz' military career and criticism of him by the state comptroller [here]
BBC bio sketches of various contenders in the 2019 Israeli election, see the section on Gantz in particular [here].  See part of the bio sketch on Gantz below:

"Mr Gantz's election ads have trumpeted his military record, featuring a body count of Palestinian militants and scenes of destruction from the war in Gaza that he oversaw in 2014. [emphasis added]

"Seeking to draw right-leaning voters away from Mr Netanyahu, Mr Gantz has talked tough on Iran and echoed the prime minister's positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He has avoided mention of a two-state solution and ruled out unilateral withdrawals in the occupied West Bank, pledging to bolster large Israeli settlement blocs there and maintain the IDF's freedom of action throughout the territory. Settlements are seen as illegal under international law, although Israel disagrees." [BBC here]

The BBC clearly shows that Gantz is echoing Netanyahu's positions in order to draw Netanyahu's voters. But his dishonesty is obvious. Echoing BB's positions is a demagogic ploy. He cannot be trusted.
In another post, I will present some info about Gantz's incompetent or mediocre army career filled with contemptible actions and decisions. 
[this blog post was slightly revised on 9 April 2019]