Benjamin Netanyahu's government is torn apart. On the evening of Monday, March 25, shortly after the vote on a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Gideon Saar, the leader of a small Israeli right-wing party, announced that he was leaving the ruling coalition. He had been unsuccessful in his bid for a seat in the war cabinet, the inner circle of ministers who direct operations in Gaza. His move urges the centrist party of General Benny Gantz to follow his example, while the latter is already engaged in a power struggle with Netanyahu. On March 24, Gantz also threatened to resign.
Netanyahu's powerful rival in the cabinet is a bulwark against a deeply unpopular bill in Israel, designed to perpetuate the exemption from military service granted to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. This exception ensures Netanyahu the electoral support of these fundamentalists, who live like an island inside Israel, subject only to the authority of their rabbis.
The Supreme Court ruled back in 2017 that this status violated the principle of equality of citizens. It requires the ruling coalition to redefine a legal framework before April 1 or send these young people into the army. For a majority of Israelis, the privilege they enjoy seems anachronistic at best and revolting at worst during a war that has mobilized reservists on a massive scale. The bill drafted by Netanyahu with the ultra-Orthodox parties "would be crossing a red line during normal times, and during the war, it's like flying a black flag over it," said Gantz, the former chief of the General Staff.
Gantz is leading this fight alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who is also openly challenging the prime minister. On Sunday, this retired general from Netanyahu's Likud party denounced the bill as "a moral failure." He offered Gantz the right to veto the bill, promising once again that his ministry would not submit it to parliament without the approval of all government members.
Gallant, who hasn't been seen with the prime minister in weeks, was provoking him shortly before flying to Washington, where he was due to meet with senior members of the Biden administration. He did not choose this sensitive moment by chance. Concurrently with US Democrats, the generals of the Israeli government are losing patience with Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza.
They fear that the prime minister is unnecessarily provoking the American ally for the sole purpose of ensuring his own political survival. Their entourage points out that the army has been waiting for three months for a Palestinian authority that is as docile as possible to take charge of civilian life in the ruined enclave and replace Hamas. Netanyahu refuses to conduct such negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, and promises to continue the war "until total victory."
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