How Long Before Israelis Break Under the Weight of the Country's Chronic Crises? - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Does a bridge too far exist? It looks like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to seriously look into this question. His latest move against the Israel Defense Forces chief Eyal Zamir is intended to push him into a corner, on the brink of resignation or dismissal.
That's what Defense Minister Israel Katz did this week, on a mission from Netanyahu, when he chose to engineer a spat over an issue that's marginally important to the public, but to which senior officers attach exaggerated importance: namely, an extensive round of IDF appointments at the colonel and brigadier general level. The transparent aim is to make Zamir's life miserable and reduce his ability to influence the coming moves that Netanyahu is planning for the war in the Gaza Strip.
Almost two years into the war, the new Netanyahu is taking risks he didn't dare take in the past. The first "Night of Gallant" in March 2023, when protests erupted against Netanyahu's firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, forced the prime minister to retract the move. But when he fired him again in November 2024, provoking the second "Night of Gallant," the defense minister was sent on his way with only weak protestation.
Since then, Netanyahu has maneuvered the resignation of the former chief of staff, Herzl Halevi, and the former head of the Shin Bet security service, Ronen Bar. It's part of the effort to entrench a narrative that the security leadership alone is to blame for the failures that made the October 7 massacre possible. In addition, the chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Likud's Yuli Edelstein, was dumped because of his opposition to a law that would allow Haredim to be exempt from the army draft (an issue that also generated tension between Netanyahu and both Gallant and Halevi).
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But the question that remains is, when will the Israeli public reach its breaking point? With the resignation of two chiefs of staff in succession, the appointment of a flagrantly unqualified defense minister, a clear and present danger to the life of the hostages, a plan to occupy Gaza City and the enactment of the Haredi draft exemption law, does the moment come when the public says: Enough is enough?
Will this have an impact, to the point of causing a further significant decrease in reporting for reserve duty and in willingness to fight in Gaza, while the chief of staff himself openly casts doubts on the move's prospect for success?
One thing has remained stable since October 7: Netanyahu is never responsible or blameworthy. A prodigious effort is being invested to get this across. The goal, as always, will be to shift responsibility onto the professional echelon – first for the blunders that enabled the massacre, and now for Netanyahu's failure to keep his promise of vanquishing Hamas.
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir at the Hashmonaim Brigade base this month.
Zamir fell out of favor fast, but not unexpectedly. The prime minister ordered an aggressive general from the quartermaster's stock; it's not his fault that he was sent a shopworn general. The hundreds of thousands who watch "The Patriots" every evening on the Bibi-ist Channel 14 and who intend to vote Likud again already wholeheartedly believe this. At most, it's Katz's fault for proposing Zamir for the role, as Netanyahu Jr. is already claiming. The defense minister already grumbling about this a little, but only sotto voce, being careful not to become a victim of the poison machine.
Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, Netanyahu's faithful military secretary whose name is also being mentioned as Zamir's successor if the need arises, despite his lack of experience, explains in private conversations that the blame for the delay in achieving "total victory" in Gaza doesn't lie with the political decision-makers. In his opinion, it's the officers, who aren't gung-ho enough to achieve a decisive victory. Another confidant, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, this week explained in an interview on Haaretz's podcast, "This is the best war in Israel's history. Our situation is 10 times better." This is an alternative strategic reality, and there are people who are happy to live in it.
Also this week, someone posted a short video on social media that lists all of Netanyahu's promises since last year about the "total victory" that's waiting in Gaza, just around the corner. Back then, Rafah was said to be the last bastion. Now it turns out that it's Gaza City again.
The media insists on mistakenly describing Netanyahu and his government as facing a dilemma, a decision about whether to turn right or left, to a hostage deal or to a continuation of the war. Netanyahu simply arrives at a T-junction and keeps going straight ahead, bashing his head against the wall. In his public appearances this week he looked somewhat haunted, trying to outrun the developments. Most attention was focused on the Sunday press conference with the Israeli media, in which the prime minister chose to squabble with every reporter who wasn't holding a Channel 14 microphone.
Even weirder was the speech he delivered in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, at a belated reception marking American Independence Day. In his remarks he assailed former high-ranking defense establishment officials, claiming that "the word victory is not in their lexicon." He went on at length about the atrocities which, he said, were documented during the massacre perpetrated by Bedouin from extremist Sunni militias against the Druze in southern Syria about a month ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the U.S. Independence Day reception, known as the annual Fourth of July celebration, hosted by Newsmax, in Jerusalem August 13, 2025.Credit: REUTERS
The terrorists, he claimed, can be seen as they "knife [a Druze civilian] who is lying on the ground, then tear out his heart and eat it." They also "burned babies and they added a few things." Journalists are still trying to find out if this footage exists. But that's not the point. His insistence on describing the horrors in gory detail was intended as a message for Americans: This is what we are fighting. Everyone around us wants to slaughter us, to inflict another October 7 on us.
The prime minister addresses only his political base, from the Bibi-ists to the hardalim, or nationalist ultra-Orthodox, and the Haredim. The country's other citizens couldn't interest him any less. In recent weeks, rumors have been circulating that two of his closest advisers, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi, intend to leave. Netanyahu, meanwhile, is busy imitating Donald Trump. In February, following his first meeting with the newly reelected president, Netanyahu returned from Washington on a high, and gave a long talk in a cabinet meeting about the only important test senior officials should be gauged by: their loyalty to the leader.
This week, in an interview to his second home channel, i24 News, he found a new role model: the United Arab Emirates. There's no democracy there, he admitted, but they know how to fight bureaucracy. Now he's looking for a brave regulation warrior, an Elon Musk of his own, as if he hasn't headed every government here, other than one, since 2009. In a stormy security cabinet meeting last Thursday night, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir caustically told Zamir that the IDF needs to learn the meaning of obedience from the police. And we haven't even mentioned Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who this week changed the locks of the Tel Aviv office he shares with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, to prevent her from entering it.
Subject for clinical research
There's a direct line between the government's attitude toward Baharav-Miara and its attitude toward Zamir. The hostility toward the latter simply wasn't cultivated over a long enough period, but Katz is rapidly making up for lost time. The latest dispute erupted on Sunday night, after Katz put on a show of artificial anger, claiming that Zamir hadn't consulted with him about the approval of the IDF appointments – involving ranks that the defense minister almost has no say in.
Katz doesn't actually know the candidates, and it's unlikely that he cares who will be appointed division or brigade commander. It's customary for the minister to approve these appointments in bulk, unless he has objections to a specific candidate. This is now the third time that Katz has pulled the same leadership stunt with the chiefs of staff – Halevi and Zamir – since taking office last November. Katz ostensibly wants to delay promotions or reassignments for officers whose performance on October 7 is still in question. In fact, this is only a pretext. Moreover, there's reasonable suspicion that Katz's move is connected to Zamir's decision not to include a number of officers in this round for the same reasons – but in their case, they're just what the government ordered.
Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz during a tour to the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday.
Among all the eloquent – though well-phrased, for a change – statements issued by the defense minister's office, one assertion by Katz stood out: that after the massacre, a lack of supervision over the IDF would not be permitted. An astonishing psychological phenomenon is being played out here, possibly a subject for clinical research: neither Katz, not Netanyahu, nor Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich nor anyone among their ministerial colleagues feels an iota of responsibility or blame following October 7, a national disaster on a vast scale, which happened on their watch, under their leadership. In the end it'll turn out to be the fault of the Rabin government, which complicated things with the Gaza disengagement (or with Oslo – who remembers, and why is it still important?).
Despite Katz's series of demeaning statements, and his attempt to humiliate Zamir by refusing to see him when he arrived at his office door, the chief of staff adamantly continues to hold substantive meetings about the operational plan in Gaza. During last Thursday's late-night meeting, which lasted 10 hours, the security cabinet approved Netanyahu's plan for the full occupation of Gaza City. But the wording of the decision and the declarations that followed leave much room for doubt.
U.S President Donald Trump welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the entrance of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 4, 2025.Credit: Leah Millis/ REUTERS
Netanyahu got a tailwind from Trump, who currently doesn't believe in the prospect of bending Hamas' will at the negotiating table and is effectively encouraging Netanyahu to take military action. However, Washington is also setting conditions: the humanitarian aid is entering Gaza, and will continue to enter on a broad scale, in the light of Trump's shock at the images of starvation from the Strip. And the president also prefers a relatively speedy operation. In contrast, the IDF is talking about preparations that will take many weeks – evacuating almost a million people, organizing an alternative humanitarian shelter outside the city and calling up tens of thousands of reservists, who aren't eager to get back into uniform.
As part of the crass campaign against Zamir, Netanyahu and Katz's offices are trying to infect the chief of staff with an imaginary cabal of advisers, which includes retired generals who can be accused of "Kaplanism" – a reference to Tel Aviv's Kaplan Street, the hub of the anti-government protest movement – or of having ties with Qatar (if you recall, the Qatargate affair focuses on the Prime Minister's Office itself). In practice, every chief of staff sometimes consults with his predecessors, and out of all them Zamir chose to speak to Gabi Ashkenazi, who didn't even participate in the protest movement. And still, for the moment, Zamir enjoys a significant advantage over his predecessor Halevi. He is not perceived by the public as being responsible for the failures of October 7, because he served as the director general of the Defense Ministry at the time; and there is a broad public consensus around him.
The conclusion, perhaps, is that he would be better off not wallowing in the mud that's being dredged up by Katz and the Netanyahu family. Zamir should ignore the humiliations and the insults, skip the media campaign and concentrate on preparing the army for its missions, while clearly drawing his red lines. Of course it's quite possible that this won't help, either. On Thursday it was reported that Katz and Zamir shook hands at a military ceremony they both attended, but didn't speak to each other.
The more tangled the war in Gaza, the more blatant and wild the government's actions. In the last round of appointments of generals, the promotion of Maj. Gen. Dan Goldfus was blocked. The reason wasn't declared but is clear enough: A year ago, when he concluded his tour as commander of the 89th Division in the battles in Gaza, Goldus delivered a trenchant speech in which he called on the ministers to treat his combat troops with the dignity they deserve. That was enough to get him onto the politicians' blacklist. In the background of the clash with Zamir is also his refusal to be in cahoots with the proponents of the Haredi draft evasion law. For Netanyahu, this is a sacred mission, and anyone who gets in his way will pay the price.
A Palestinian collects humanitarian aid after it was airdropped by parachutes into Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025.Credit: Jehad Alshrafi,AP
The Shin Bet is currently being led by an acting chief, S., pending Netanyahu's attempt to appoint Maj. Gen. David Zini to the post. The prime minister's milieu is now voicing praise for S., in the light of structural reforms he is initiating in the organization, despite his temporary status. This a double gain: it's another swipe at Ronen Bar, and also a signal to Zini that another sucking up effort is needed, in a photo finish, to get the job. The hostility toward the professional echelon doesn't stop at Zamir or Bar, who has already left. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is in the middle of a lengthy debate about legislation to regulate the pensions of the senior officer corps. There's plenty to attack in the budgetary pension arrangements of the defense establishment over the years. But the committee members from Likud are talking about the IDF officer corps as if they are the true enemy, another elite that needs to be smashed.
Dr. Ofra Ben Ishai, a colonel in the reserves and a former head of the IDF's Behavioral Sciences Department, this week published an article through the Open University on the roots of the present crisis between the politicians and the military. She describes an unprecedented nadir in the relations, but believes that the crisis was not fomented by the war; rather, the war served as a trigger that intensified prior deep-seated tensions. She attributes this to a long process of erosion of the principles of the "citizens army" – a kind of Gordian knot between the elected echelon and groups in society that are disposed toward sacrifice and the military.
The period of the regime coup and the war loosened this bond, Ben Ishai writes. Zini's May farewell speech from the army, in which he spoke "in praise of messianism," is symptomatic of the model's unraveling, she notes. "At this point of time, the polarization became a destructive force that doesn't allow the repair of the twisted relations between the two echelons… They are caught up in a cycle of folly that is intensifying the rupture."