On Saturday, May 18, retired general Benny Gantz finally ventured, in measured steps, down the steep path that will lead him to quit the Israeli government and attempt to bring about elections and the downfall of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The former chief of the General Staff and his allies in the war cabinet have been dithering for five months. Speaking anonymously to the press, they have been expressing all the bad things they feel about the prime minister, with whom they have little contact.
They believe he is preoccupied with his political survival and subservient to his far-right allies, who are ready to sacrifice Hamas hostages in order to pursue their conquest of the Palestinian territories, both in the West Bank and in Gaza, where they advocate ethnic cleansing and the relocation of Jewish settlements. For the past five months, Gantz's supporters have been asking themselves: How long can he endorse the actions of this government, claiming to influence it from within?
The general did not resign on Saturday, nor repeat as he did last month that he wanted elections as early as September, but he did set an ultimatum. He is asking Netanyahu to decide on six major strategic issues, or threaten to step down from the government on June 8.
However, this date does not appear to be set in stone. Gantz implicitly accuses Netanyahu of putting his personal interests ahead of those of the country, but he still promises to "remain his partner in battle," if the Israeli leader distances himself from the "zealots" of his coalition.
The general's moderate stance is based on the fact that he is embarking on a narrow course, on which all of Netanyahu's right-wing rivals have failed for a decade: to leave him would be to risk appearing to be a traitor, by breaking a facade of unity. He fears offending those voters on the so-called "moderate" right, whose polls have indicated since October 2023 that they could rally behind him. Like many of his rivals, Gantz believes that these 20 or so swing seats out of 120 in parliament are the country's linchpin, its future.
He therefore asked the head of government to reach an agreement that would enable the hostages to be released. It would also include details on how to continue lower-intensity military operations in Gaza, while relieving the army of some of its responsibilities for 2 million displaced Palestinians through establishing a local authority.
He wants displaced Israeli residents on the northern border to be able to return to their homes by September 1 – leaving little time for a possible military operation in Lebanon to repel the Hezbollah threat. He is campaigning to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia after the war and is demanding that a proportion of ultra-Orthodox religious students cease to be exempt from military service. This reform has provoked an outcry from the fundamentalist rabbis allied with Netanyahu.
You have 50.28% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.