US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was furious with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel when he was informed with very little notice that the IDF was about to kill Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the Jerusalem Post has learned.
Throughout the war, Gallant informed Austin before major developments has been a signature part of how the two governments have communicated, especially given the low level of trust between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Add on that Israel’s foreign minister has changed and that Netanyahu has not given either Eli Cohen, or his replacement Israel Katz, much authority over higher level foreign affairs (as opposed to internal Foreign Ministry staffing and relations with lower profile countries), and the Gallant-Austin relationship has taken on even more importance than the already typically close relations between Israeli and US defense chiefs would be anyway.
Further, the two have met more often than some of their predecessors due to the numerous emergencies brought about by the war.
In addition, the two have spoken by phone over 125 times during the war, sometimes multiple times in a day.
The two have developed close relations beyond the professional issues involved in coordinating the two countries’ defense strategies, and yet Austin essentially lost it with Gallant over the Nasrallah killing and the short notice provided.
America’s goal is to stop regional war
The most important factor for Austin and the Biden administration throughout the war regarding Hezbollah, has been to avoid falling into a larger regional war.
Multiple times, the US has urged Israel to act less aggressively or not to take certain actions against Hezbollah, to avoid such a scenario.
The implication is that in this case Gallant and Israel informed the US very late in the game so as to avoid a debate or situation where they could be pressured into not acting.
This decision, on top of the decision itself to kill Nasrallah, which Israel likely rightly predicted the US would have opposed, appears to have been an additional reason for Austin’s personal anger at Gallant, despite his general trust in Gallant as one of the most apolitical and substantive members of the Netanyahu government, who has generally valued US advice more than many others.
