Netanyahu says Gallant fired over 'loss of trust'

(JNS) — The dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday led to a battle of narratives as the Prime Minister’s Office said Gallant was fired over disagreements connected to the war’s conduct while the opposition tried to frame the move as petty politics.

Four opposition leaders held a joint press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Wednesday, accusing Netanyahu of dismissing Gallant in order to pass a “draft-dodger bill” needed to placate his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners and keep his government from toppling.

Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party led off the press conference, saying Netanyahu fired the man responsible for all the war’s successes. (Netanyahu sources said most of the achievements that Gallant boasted of in his speech were decisions he opposed at the time they took place.)

“What happened yesterday is not normal,” Lapid said. “You cannot trust the prime minister or the Cabinet. The only person who could be trusted was fired yesterday. Netanyahu is not qualified. He cannot lead Israel in a time of war. The fighters cannot trust him. He had a choice—and he chose dishonor.”

Joining Lapid at the press conference were Benny Gantz of National Unity, Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beiteinu and Yair Golan of The Democrats (a merger of the Labor and Meretz parties)

The most extreme criticism came from Golan, who said of Netanyahu, “His heart is coarse, cruel and evil.”

The High Court

Earlier on Wednesday, the High Court of Justice ordered Netanyahu to respond to petitions against Gallant’s firing by noon on Thursday. The Attorney General’s Office, though often opposed to the government’s positions, is reportedly planning to defend the prime minister against the petitions.

The Likud Party issued a statement criticizing the opposition leaders. 

“Just two years ago, the four of them formed a government together with the ‘Muslim Brotherhood party’ [Ra’am, aka the United Arab List] and reached a surrender agreement with Hezbollah [the U.S.-brokered maritime deal with Lebanon]—and they still dare to talk about security?” the Likud said.

Sources close to the prime minister told Ynet that Gallant had bucked Netanyahu on a host of key military decisions, including refusing to support the prime minister’s demand to assassinate Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, opposing an IDF presence on the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, and refusing to let the IDF take charge of the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Strip, which the sources say perpetuates Hamas rule.

Gallant conducted himself in an adversarial matter, they added, frequently holding meetings with heads of organizations subordinate to the prime minister without his presence. 

And up until two weeks ago, Gallant avoided coming to Cabinet meetings to which Netanyahu had summoned him.

In a statement released by his office on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that over the past several months, the trust between himself and Gallant had “begun to crack,” resulting in an “increasingly wide crisis of confidence.”

“Defense Minister Gallant and I had substantial disagreements on the management of the military campaign, disagreements which were accompanied by public statements and actions that contravened the decisions of the Cabinet and the Security Cabinet,” Netanyahu said. 

The prime minister said that he had made “multiple attempts to resolve these disagreements,” but they only grew and became public knowledge. “[W]hat is even worse, they have reached the knowledge of the enemy; our enemies have taken great delight in these disagreements and have derived much benefit from them,” Netanyahu said.

Their disputes interfered with the military campaign, said the prime minister, an opinion shared by the majority of the Cabinet—”virtually all members share the feeling that this state of affairs cannot continue.”

Three major disagreements 

Gallant, for his part, said in a statement to the press on Tuesday, that there were three major disagreements between himself and Netanyahu, revolving around the issues of ultra-Orthodox recruitment, a hostage deal and an investigation into the failures of Oct. 7, 2023, which Netanyahu opposed.

Gallant was appointed defense minister on Dec. 29, 2022. The first dramatic public break with Netanyahu came three months into his tenure, during the crisis over the government’s judicial reform effort. 

As protests spread across the country, Gallant called for an immediate halt to the process in a televised speech on March 25, 2023, saying “the societal rift was a clear danger.”

Netanyahu fired Gallant, but when mass protests erupted, he reinstalled Gallant 10 days later. Large protests also followed Tuesday’s dismissal.

Following the disaster of Oct. 7, 13 months ago, the two men publicly disagreed on several occasions. In May, Gallant criticized the prime minister for not having a clear post-war vision for the Gaza Strip.

“Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the cabinet, and have received no response,” Gallant said during a televised address on May 15.

In July, a JNS/Direct Polls survey found that a majority of Likud voters had lost faith in Gallant and wanted him fired.

In August, after Gallant referred to the government’s slogan of “absolute victory” as gibberish, Netanyahu’s office accused the defense minister of adopting “the anti-Israel narrative.”

In September, it was reported that Netanyahu intended to fire Gallant and replace him with Gideon Sa’ar of the New Hope Party, who had just joined the coalition. Gallant shortly afterward apologized to the prime minister in an effort to prevent his dismissal.

Israel Katz, currently foreign minister, will take over the Defense portfolio. Gideon Sa’ar will become foreign minister.