Israel War Cabinet Member Sets Ultimatum and Threatens to Quit Government
Benny Gantz has criticised Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war and threatened to quit if the Israeli PM doesn’t articulate a plan for Israel to accomplish its goals.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, sharply criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and threatened to quit the government in June if Netanyahu doesn’t articulate a plan for ending the war and securing the enclave of more than two million Palestinians.
Gantz laid out his own ideas for what that plan should look like, including a demilitarised Gaza Strip with Israeli security control, an interim civil administration with Palestinian and international responsibility, and a strategy for freeing Israeli hostages. He set a June 8 deadline for Israel’s war cabinet to approve plans to accomplish those goals.
“If you choose to follow the path of zealots and lead the entire nation towards an abyss, we will be forced to leave the government,” Gantz said in comments directed towards Netanyahu. “The moment of truth has arrived.” Netanyahu’s office quickly pushed back against the criticism, arguing that Gantz’s conditions would lead to Israel losing the war.
Gantz’s comments extended an already fractious week in Israeli high politics at a time when the war in Gaza has turned more intense, with heavy fighting in several areas across the enclave and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forced to evacuate.
On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who fills out the three-member war cabinet with Netanyahu and Gantz, publicly blasted the prime minister for failing to plan for Gaza’s post-war status, which he said left Israel with a choice between an unwanted military occupation or a return to rule by Hamas.
Those comments were among the harshest public displays of internal criticism directed at Netanyahu since the start of the war. Gantz at the time said Gallant was “speaking the truth.” The displays of frustration by top officials reflect broad discontent among the Israeli military establishment and public with the Netanyahu government’s failure to close a ceasefire deal to release some of the roughly 124 remaining hostages taken by Hamas militants on Oct. 7.
They are pressuring Netanyahu’s government ahead of U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit to Israel, where he is expected to meet with the prime minister, Gallant and other officials to discuss Israel’s latest push into the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah as well as post-war plans for the strip.
The absence of a political plan for post-war Gaza is one of the sharpest points of friction with the US, a crucial strategic partner of Israel. Senior officials in President Biden’s administration including Sullivan have urged Israel to come up with a plan, pointing to the outbreak of violence in previously cleared areas of the Gaza Strip and warning the country can’t win with force alone.
Netanyahu rejected the US demands on Wednesday, arguing that it would be “just chatter” while Hamas remains intact.
“There is no alternative to military victory,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office. “The attempt to bypass it with this or that claim is simply detached from reality.” The U.S. is working on a long-shot diplomatic deal that would swap Israeli commitments to Palestinian statehood for diplomatic recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia, an effort to create a long-term solution to the conflict. Netanyahu’s office said Saturday he opposes “the establishment of a Palestinian state that will inevitably be a terrorist state.” Gantz, a former head of Israel’s military who has emerged as Netanyahu’s chief political rival, joined Israel’s wartime government as a show of unity after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that Israeli authorities said killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Saturday evening, the military said it recovered from Gaza the body of Israeli hostage Ron Benjamin, 53, who Israel said was killed during Hamas’s initial attack. Israeli officials have privately estimated that dozens of hostages are dead, and the Israeli public increasingly favours a deal to free living captives over military action, saying that their time is running out.
Netanyahu’s party holds the most parliamentary seats in his coalition, but the realities of Israeli electoral politics still leave the prime minister heavily dependent on far-right parties that have pushed him to give priority to military operations over a ceasefire deal.
Gantz’s withdrawal likely would leave those far-right parties with even greater influence in Netanyahu’s government. His slimmed down coalition retains a narrow grip on power and could be forced into elections by losing just five additional politicians.
Israel invaded Gaza after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. The war has killed more than 35,000 in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose figures don’t say how many were combatants.
The Wall Street Journal
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