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Matti Friedman: As America Votes, Israel's Crisis Deepens
Yoav Gallant. (via X)

Matti Friedman: As America Votes, Israel’s Crisis Deepens

Bibi’s ouster of his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, sent Israelis pouring into the streets in protest. The opposition leader called the move an “act of madness.”

For Israelis, a large part of the darkness of the last year has been the fact that the country finds itself at the darkest moment in its history with the least competent government in its history. The key exception has been Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who was just fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a decision that triggered furious protests across the country.

Gallant, a former navy commando and retired general, shares responsibility for the dire failure of October 7, 2023. But over the past year he has maintained the confidence of the military and intelligence services for which he’s responsible, and of the general public that sends its children to the army and hopes they’re in capable hands. Gallant has led the recovery from the abyss of last October to the accomplishments of this fall, including the decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the skillful air strike in Iran last month.

His problem has been that Prime Minister Netanyahu does not like people whose stature rivals or exceeds his own, and who answer to their own moral compass and not to the prime minister’s political needs. Netanyahu already tried to fire Gallant once, in March 2023, when the defense minister spoke out against Netanyahu’s controversial “judicial reform” plan, which was tearing apart Israeli society and, crucially, the military. Public fury made the prime minister reverse course. 

At the moment, Gallant is inconvenient to the prime minister because Gallant is refusing to go along with legislation that will allow ultra-Orthodox men to continue evading army service. This issue has become more and more contentious as Israel’s active soldiers and reservists come under unprecedented strain in one of the longest wars the country has had to fight since 1948. The legislation is unpopular with the majority of Israelis, but Netanyahu needs it to keep his coalition together and ensure his own political survival. The ax fell on Tuesday night, with Gallant reportedly given a 10-minute warning before the move was made public.

In a televised statement after he was fired, Gallant mentioned two other disagreements with Netanyahu: He called for a national commission of inquiry into the October 7 disaster, which Netanyahu has resisted. And he believes a hostage deal is possible and necessary, suggesting that Netanyahu does not. “There isn’t and will never be atonement for abandoning the hostages,” Gallant said. “It will become a mark of Cain on the forehead of Israeli society, and on those leading us on this mistaken path.”

Netanyahu’s narrative is that Gallant has been too close to the IDF command and reluctant to oppose its plans, too resistant to aspects of the prime minister’s strategy, and too amenable to American demands.   

Gallant will be replaced with Yisrael Katz, a Likud apparatchik who is now the foreign minister, not that many have noticed. Katz has little relevant experience for the role, and his appointment amid a multifront war demonstrates the kind of political cynicism and recklessness that has come to characterize Netanyahu after nearly 15 years in power. 

As protests erupted in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other Israeli cities this evening, Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister and Netanyahu’s rival in the polls, called the country's leadership “sick and crazy,” striking a tone he hasn’t used before. Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, called the move an “act of madness.” 

Gallant’s firing introduces further uncertainty into a political system already roiled by the war and economic woes, and now bracing for the unpredictable results of the American election. And it will severely test the will of Israelis of the center, left, and moderate right, who have proved willing to pull together to win a war even with a government they don’t trust, but won’t do so indefinitely.

Matti Friedman is a Jerusalem-based columnist for The Free Press. His most recent piece was about the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. You can read all of his work for us here.

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