When pagers exploded across Lebanon last week, the year-long war with Hezbollah was not at the top of the Israeli political agenda. <\/p>\n
Instead, the political class was convulsed with speculation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with a military neophyte, Gideon Sa\u2019ar, to shore up his domestic power. National security heavyweights were scathing. \u201cIt\u2019ll take him months on end to train for the job,\u201d said Gadi Eisenkot, a highly respected former Israeli military chief and member of the opposition. <\/p>\n
The pager and subsequent walkie-talkie explosions \u2013\u202fwhich together killed dozens, maimed thousands, and rattled Lebanese nerves \u2013 put paid to that scheme, for now. The suddenly heightened tensions with Hezbollah gave Gallant a lifeline. Reports in the Israeli press suggest that the stay on Gallant\u2019s dismissal is only temporary, and that Netanyahu still intends to fire him. <\/p>\n
Policy and domestic politics are impossible to separate in any democracy, but especially in Netanyahu\u2019s Israel \u2013\u202fand especially now. <\/p>\n
The Israeli government says it needed to ramp up the war with Hezbollah to return 60,000 displaced civilians to their homes in northern Israel. Since the day after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah has been firing on Israel in solidarity with the militant group and Palestinians in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands have also been forced from their homes by Israeli bombardment in Lebanon. <\/p>\n
Returning the northern residents home is a political imperative in Israel. And since the cabinet formally added the goal to its war aims, it\u2019s a policy one too. But the heightened war with Hezbollah also stands in the way of Netanyahu\u2019s desire to fire Gallant. <\/p>\n
Just this week, after giving the green light to a US-backed mediation effort with Lebanon, the prime minister faced withering criticism from his right-wing allies, who say only a military conflict will remove Hezbollah from the border. Ben Gvir\u2019s party held an urgent consultation \u2013\u202fimplicitly threatening to upend the coalition. The criticism forced Netanyahu to release a statement rejecting the idea of an imminent ceasefire. When he later put out another statement saying that he was engaging in the process with the United States, he only released it in English, not Hebrew. <\/p>\n
In attacking Hezbollah, the Israeli government is trying to \u201cdecouple\u201d Lebanon from Gaza. Hezbollah says that it\u2019s attacking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza; Israel wants to get Hezbollah to stop firing even without a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal. And yet there is a widespread assumption among the national security class in Israel that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza because he knows that as soon as it is over, he will face enormous pressure to call an election. <\/p>\n
The families of the 101 people still held hostage in Gaza regularly accuse the prime minister of playing for time and putting his political survival above the national interest. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf Netanyahu wanted to end it, he could. So I guess that\u2019s not his intention at this point.\u201d <\/p>\n
The prime minister and Gallant have long had strained relations, despite a period of unity following Hamas\u2019 October 7 attack. <\/p>\n
The two have often disagreed over the war in Gaza. In August, Gallant told a closed-door Knesset committee that Netanyahu\u2019s goal of \u201cabsolute victory\u201d in Gaza was \u201cnonsense,\u201d according to Israeli media. Netanyahu took the extraordinary step of releasing a press statement accusing Gallant of adopting an \u201canti-Israel narrative.\u201d <\/p>\n
Gallant was also highly critical of Netanyahu\u2019s emphasis on Israeli control of a strip of territory along the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it a \u201cmoral disgrace.\u201d In cabinet, he voted against continued occupation there, seeing it as a hinderance to a ceasefire and hostage deal. \u201cIf we want the hostages alive, we don\u2019t have time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
With both the Philadelphi Corridor and Hezbollah, Netanyahu\u2019s critics have questioned why, if they were so critical, he waited months to raise the stakes over those issues. Netanyahu has said in response that it was a \u201cprogression of military advancement.\u201d <\/p>\n
Indeed, when the prime minister previously attempted to dismiss Gallant, in March last year, it was over the defense minister\u2019s opposition to Netanyahu\u2019s proposed judicial overhaul \u2013\u202fan issue that had the potential to bring down the government. <\/p>\n
The idea that Gallant might be fired over the judicial reforms led immediately to mass protests that came to be known in Israel as the \u201cNight of Gallant.\u201d Ultimately, Netanyahu did not follow through. One of the factors weighing on Netanyahu in his hesitance to fire him now has been fear of a second such night. <\/p>\n
Behind the headlines of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahu\u2019s ability to govern has long been threatened by a seemingly back-burner issue: the Israeli military\u2019s recruitment of ultra-Orthodox Israelis, known in Hebrew as Haredim. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe danger to the coalition connected to the draft law for the Haredim is very high,\u201d Malach said. \u201cSo (Netanyahu) would do the things that will help him keep the coalition. And if Gallant is in his way to keep the coalition, he will do whatever he can to remove him from the office.\u201d <\/p>\n
The issue of ultra-Orthodox military service has long plagued Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews had since Israel\u2019s founding been exempt from mandatory service, because they viewed Torah study as the highest calling. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court said that the exemption violated equal protection principles and mandated the IDF to start drafting. <\/p>\n
Ever since, the ultra-Orthodox parties on whom Netanyahu relies to govern have been trying to draft legislation to enshrine a new exemption in law. Up until now, they have been notably unwilling to follow through on threats to leave the coalition \u2013 rarely have they had so much power. But their unhappiness with the IDF\u2019s current mandate to recruit ultra-Orthodox men remains a sword of Damocles. <\/p>\n
Gallant is a thorn in Netanyahu\u2019s side, pushing him not to give in to the ultra-Orthodox desire for an exemption. He, like many military leaders, thinks that all Jewish Israelis should share the burden of military service \u2013 and has said he won\u2019t support any law that doesn\u2019t have broad political support. <\/p>\n
Sa\u2019ar, whom Netanyahu wanted to replace Gallant, was said to have much better relations with the ultra-Orthodox parties. <\/p>\n
Eisenkot, the former IDF chief of the General Staff, said the ultra-Orthodox issue was central to Netanyahu\u2019s desire to get rid of the defense minister. <\/p>\n
\u201cFiring Gallant \u2013\u202fand I\u2019m not a fan of Gallant \u2013 is meant to serve political needs, to pass the conscription law, consequently damaging the IDF,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is more of Netanyahu\u2019s cynical policy.\u201d <\/p>\n
With Netanyahu\u2019s backing, the ultra-Orthodox parties hope to pass a military exemption when the Knesset returns following the Jewish High Holidays in October. Even if the law passes, the Supreme Court is almost certain to knock it down, Malach said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the point is that you are getting time. And this is the most important thing for Netanyahu,\u201d he said. \u201cThe short term is the whole term for him. Because until the Supreme Court will decide, he will get one year, two years \u2013 that\u2019s enough.\u201d <\/p>\n
That short-term strategy may well come to apply to Hezbollah as well. Amid all the talk of whether Israel will invade Lebanon in the coming days, there is no discussion of what a long-term settlement with Israel\u2019s neighbor might look like. <\/p>\n
Michael Shemesh, a correspondent for Israeli broadcaster Kan traveling with Netanyahu to New York this week, said that reporters asked an aide to the prime minister about the potential that Gallant might be fired. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t do politics during wartime,\u201d the aide replied. \u201cThere were reporters who couldn\u2019t help but laugh,\u201d Shemesh said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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