Why Israel's Defense Minister Just Broke His Silence About Netanyahu's Gaza War Paralysis - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has made little secret of his contempt for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throughout this war. Long before his bombshell of a press conference on Wednesday night, in one of the very rare occasions over the past seven months in which the two were seen together in public (at a press conference on October 28), a reporter asked Gallant, "You've expressed confidence in the [Israel Defense Forces] chief of staff and in the directors of the Shin Bet and Mossad. Do you have confidence in the prime minister as well?"
Gallant hesitated for a second and answered, "I spoke about what I'm responsible for – the security establishment." Israel was at war and its defense minister was refusing to say that he had confidence in the prime minister. Not that it came as much of a surprise to anyone. Seven months earlier, Netanyahu tried to fire Gallant over his open objections to the judicial overhaul and backed down only in the wake of a night of massive protests that rocked his government and forced him to suspend the legislation. Netanyahu may have rescinded the dismissal, but that hardly restored confidence.
Neither was Gallant's message to the Israeli public this week particularly new. Over two months ago, someone leaked to the media that the defense minister presented the cabinet with a comprehensive plan for the gradual deployment in Gaza of a local Palestinian security force, aligned with the Palestinian Authority – only for Netanyahu to veto the plan.
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When Gallant said on Wednesday night that "the day after Hamas will only be achieved through the rule of Palestinian elements that form an alternative to Hamas" and that "unfortunately, no such plan has been brought for debate, and worse yet, no alternative has been presented in its place," the only new detail was that he was finally doing so in public.
Why has Gallant remained silent on this for so long, and what caused him to choose this moment to speak out?
Sources close to the defense minister say that he was representing the entire security establishment – the IDF General Staff as well as the Shin Bet security service – who agree that Israel needs to start working urgently on preparing a Palestinian security force to take over from Hamas in Gaza if the war's tactical gains are not to be squandered, but was anxious to avoid deepening the divide between it and the prime minister by going public. So why change that now?
Displaced Palestinians walk around a puddle in front of destroyed buildings and tents in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 16.Credit: AFP
"Not making a decision is tantamount to a dangerous decision to install Israeli military and civil rule in the Gaza Strip," he said at the press conference. Gallant and the other generals are worried that the power vacuum, humanitarian crisis and fear of Hamas rebuilding its military presence will force Israel to establish a system of military occupation and administration of all Gaza's civil matters. They are fully aware that the far-right members of Netanyahu's coalition want exactly that to happen so they can rebuild the settlements dismantled in 2005. That isn't Netanyahu's aim, but he's too paralyzed by fear of his partners bringing down his government to take any concrete steps to prevent such an outcome.
Gallant is no centrist. He supports continuing the occupation in the West Bank and building more settlements there. But he believes trying to do so in Gaza would be disastrous to Israel's security and its alliances with the United States and Egypt.
This is the third time he's put the government on blast. The first was over the judicial overhaul last March. Then, in February this year, he once again rocked the coalition when he announced that he would not support the government's legislation on regulating the yeshiva students' exemption from military service, unless it provided a real pathway towards drafting a significant proportion of them. And now, this week, he's challenged Netanyahu's lack of strategy in prosecuting the war. This isn't enough on its own to bring down Netanyahu, but it has set the stage for political upheaval.
Gallant knows by now he has nothing to lose. He won't run for the Knesset again as a Likud member. The party in its current form will not field candidates who have challenged the eternal leader so openly. But he reckons that Netanyahu won't risk firing him right now as it would trigger another "Gallant Night" like last year.
For now, we have the absurd spectacle of a senior minister severely criticizing the prime minister at a time of war and not getting fired for it. Yet another low for Israel's lowest of governments.