Benny Gantz’s first assignment as a young army recruit was to participate in securing Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Israel in 1977.

Twenty-three years later, he was the last Israeli soldier to leave Lebanon after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2000.

Today, four years after he left the army as its 20th chief of staff, he is the first person in a long while who has a realistic chance of replacing Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister.

Though he has zero political experience and the high-tech company he chaired for three years was a spectacular failure, Gantz, a tall, 59-year-old, father of four, seems to be convincing an increasingly large group of Israeli voters that he can lead the country better than his former boss.

Read More at Times of Israel.