Netanyahu dissolves the war cabinet due to pressure from the far right to integrate it

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the war cabinet. It is the forum of just six members that he created in October to make key decisions on the “long and difficult” war that he had just announced in the wake of the Hamas attack. This is the chronicle of a death announced on the 9th, when Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot, the only two ministers from the opposition who were part of it, left the Executive due to differences with Netanyahu over the management of the conflict, which starts every day. dozens of Palestinian lives and generates a feeling of directionlessness in Israel. Especially this Monday, in which the burials of 11 Israeli soldiers conclude, the highest number of combat deaths announced in a single day in half a year.

Only Gantz had the right to vote in the cabinet. Eizenkot was observant. His departure made sense of a forum created precisely at the former’s request, in exchange for abandoning the opposition and entering the Executive.

The four remaining members were all from the government coalition: Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, with the right to vote and from the same party (Likud); Ron Dermer, one of Netanyahu’s closest men, and Arieh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party Shas, as observers. The chiefs of the General Staff and the intelligence services also participated, and the generals who direct the war and other advisors usually joined. They were more agile meetings, lasting a couple of hours, with abundant graphic material on the status of operations on the ground and a brainstorming format. Since the famous kitchenette by Golda Meir (small meetings in the kitchen of her house), the relevant decisions in times of war in Israel usually end up being left in few hands.

As soon as Gantz abandoned the ship because he felt it was adrift, the two main far-right leaders in the Executive, the Ministers of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, rushed to demand the vacant seats in the cabinet. of war. It is not the same to be in the forum that really takes the wheel than, like the two of them, alone in the political and security cabinet, with meetings lasting up to six hours, leaks to the local media and speeches by its 20 permanent members thinking about the press headlines.

Faced with this dilemma, Netanyahu has directly chosen to dismantle the war cabinet. He is aware of the radicalism (they defend filling Gaza again with settlers and soldiers permanently and “encouraging” its inhabitants to leave it) of those who demanded to fill the void and how bad it would have felt in Washington. US President Joe Biden has in fact lamented in recent months that Israel has the “most conservative” government in its history, citing Ben Gvir by name as part of the problem.

Netanyahu and Gallant will now make the most important decisions on the war in meetings ad hoc with ministers like Dermer, very close to the prime minister and head of Strategic Affairs. Ben Gvir will not be invited, according to the newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

Pressures

The decision comes at a time when the opposition and far-right agree to push Netanyahu to make decisions, each in a different direction, to stop prolonging the war for personal interests, promising a “total victory” that he already saw four months ago. to reach”. The former urge him to seal an agreement to release the 129 hostages remaining in Gaza, even if it means the end of the war, and immediately afterward call early elections. The latter, to enter the city of Rafah with blood and fire and start a parallel war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This tension has generated a political hubbub this weekend that reflects the internal struggle for the upper hand and the tensions between politicians, particularly those further to the right, and the military. The army spokesperson announced on Sunday an 11-hour “tactical pause” in the bombings on the route from the Kerem Shalom border crossing, through which trucks with humanitarian aid enter, to a hospital also in the south of the Strip. It did not affect the offensive in Rafah, nor the rest of the invasion, nor did it solve the problem of how to distribute aid from there, but it outraged Netanyahu and his far-right associates.

“The army focuses every day on achieving international legitimacy, instead of leaving it to the political sphere and focusing its attention on winning the war,” Ben Gvir protested. Netanyahu’s own office issued a statement noting that he was unaware of the measure, which he considered “unacceptable.” Later, he buried the controversy, after receiving confirmation that the pause does not represent any change in policies and that “the combat in Rafah continues according to plans.”

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