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Keep your eye on Israeli politician Benny Gantz. He is currently the bookies’ favourite to be Israel’s next Prime Minister.

More importantly, he has hinted at a willingness to discuss the two-state solution.

This has put him in direct conflict with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right coalition members of his government. They are totally opposed to the two-state solution which is being pushed by the US, Europe, the Arab world and virtually everyone except Netanyahu and Co.

Gantz’s political flexibility earned him an invitation to visit Washington where this week he met with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The visit was not cleared with Netanyahu who ordered Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, to do everything possible to sabotage the Gantz visit.

And when the minister-without-portfolio returned he was told by Netanyahu that “Israel has only one prime minister.” That prime minister, it must be said, has yet to receive an invitation to visit the Biden White House.

Gantz is leader of the National Unity Party. Like so many Israeli politicians he came through the ranks of the military, eventually becoming army chief of staff in 2012. Then in 2018 he decided to turn his hand to politics and very quickly emerged as the main opposition figure to Netanyahu.

After the October 7 attack by Hamas, Netanyahu invited Gantz to join a national unity war cabinet, along with three other members of his party

Gantz accepted and is in full agreement with Netanyahu on the need for total victory over Hamas. But the two men part company over what happens next.

Netanyahu is adamant in his refusal to discuss a two-state solution or anything even remotely resembling a two=state solution.

But in 2020, Gantz told the Munich Security Conference: “Eventually we will find ourselves a two-entity solution in which we respect Palestinian sovereignty and governance but we will be respected for our security needs.”

Despite repeated questioning by journalists and others, Gantz refused to define “entity.” But position was clear enough to prompt far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to describe Benny Gantz as the “weak link” in Israel’s war cabinet. This week Smotrich stood up in the Knesset and demanded that Gantz declare his opposition to the two-state solution. Gantz’s reply was a deafening silence.

Meanwhile the minister-without-portfolio continues to rise in the opinion polls and Netanyahu continues to fall. According to a poll this week by Israel’s Channel 10, voters believe that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political ends. According to the poll, voters think that the prime minister knows that when the war ends he will unceremoniously be voted out of office and – without immunity from prosecution–face a series of long-standing corruption charges.

The Sudanese Civil War is a forgotten war. It shouldn’t be.