Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally met with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir this week amid reports of a rift between the two.
The meeting was reportedly aimed at resolving the latest crisis between the two in which Ben-Gvir wasn’t invited to a security meeting that media said involved issues under his authority like the Temple Mount.
The Prime Minister’s Office had initially indicated that the meeting didn’t concern Ben-Gvir because it was mainly focused on Iran, but accusations from Ben-Gvir’s surroundings against Netanyahu’s Chief of Staff Tzachi Braverman indicated that the national security minister should have been invited and was intentionally snubbed to stop him from bringing up issues that Netanyahu didn’t want to discuss.
The meeting would be Netanyahu’s latest attempt to appease Ben-Gvir and maintain stability in his government.
“Netanyahu highly values stability,” a key senior government figure told The Jerusalem Post.
Ben-Gvir ‘significant burden’ on gov’t
Over the past eight months, however, Ben-Gvir’s government partners have not seen him as a stable force within the government.
“Ben-Gvir is a significant burden on the government,” said the source calling him an anarchist. “His behavior is highly impulsive, causing unrest. Leading his team is challenging, and it’s no coincidence that his ministry’s director-general resigned. He creates a lot of headaches for the government, and other ministries struggle to work with him.”
Former D-G of the National Security Ministry Shlomo Ben Eliyahu resigned a few weeks ago for “personal reasons”, but sources in the ministry said that the real reason was Ben-Gvir being overly controlling.
Another government source told the Post that dissatisfaction and impatience toward Ben-Gvir was also coming from within his Otzma Yehudit party.
According to the source, members of the party were among the coalition members urging Ben-Gvir to cancel the prayer service he had planned in Tel Aviv as a protest against the events of Yom Kippur.
Ben-Gvir eventually canceled the event at the last minute but claimed it was because a counter service that was planned for the same day was moved to a different location.
Meanwhile, as the Knesset’s winter session begins on October 14, the government’s ability to rely on Ben-Gvir will be tested as he announced in September that his party would not be bound by coalition discipline in votes. If he doesn’t change his mind, the government might find it hard to legislate without Otzma Yehudit’s six votes.
Zvika Klein contributed to this report.
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